Take the Long Way Home
by MoonDrop162
Summary: What will Samantha do when her visions start up again, this time about something in their old home in Lawrence? How will she and her brother Dean face the demons from their past, and will they save everyone in time? Based off 'Home'. M for lang. Fem!Sam.
1. A Spark of Insight

**Hello, my beauties!**

**This story will update slower than "Relapse" and "Western Wendigo" because I haven't finished writing it all yet. I'm still within the first three or four chapters. But fret not, my dears! I will keep the adventures of our dear Samantha and Dean coming as swiftly as I can manage!**

**Personally, I love this episode. A lot. I can't wait to get to Missouri, she cracks me up. **

**As always, reviews are love, and they fuel my conviction to write! Please leave me love.**

**Without further ado... Bombs away!**

**Yours,**

**MD**

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_**

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><p><em>It was the quiet before the storm that scared her more than anything. This silence that swallowed everything whole, the quiet that prevailed all life. It made her skin crawl with the need to scream, but the weight in her gut held a hand over her mouth, keeping the silence and leaving her with only the option of observation. She kept her eyes trained on the window, the slight breeze wafting the scent of the flowers and freshly-cut-grass into her face. The night was chilly, with no clouds to speak of, and the glittering stars overhead laughed down at her, mocking her growing unease. There was a lone tree that stood out in the front yard, not a single leaf left on those twisting, formidable branches. Samantha was aware of all of this, but none of it. Somewhere in her mind, she was observing the direction of the wind, and the pale blue of the house in front of her; every minute detail was analyzed and stored by a more subconscious part of her brain. She observed everything, and nothing. For now, she only had eyes on that window.<em>

_There was a young woman standing in the frame of it, blonde hair, brown eyes, a slightly crooked nose and thin lips. Her skin seemed to glow in the light of the half moon, but it made her look pasty rather than ethereal, frightening rather than alluring. The pit in her stomach got heavier when the woman began banging on the glass. The silence swallowed up the demands her fists made of the cool pane, but Sam could see the glass shaking with the force of the woman's blows, and she knew that this was borne out of true desperation and fear. Her mouth was open on a scream. It was all happening so slowly, like someone had reduced the flow of time so Sam could take in every detail. The way her mouth stretched as her jaw opened wider and wider until her lips were pulled as taught as was possible without injury. The way her every strand of hair looked as she (slowly) spun her head around to look behind her, and the way it looked when she turned back out the window. The track over every pore her tears of horror took down her cheeks. The wild look in her eyes. Her lips gradually shutting as she stopped screaming and the shape of them as she started to plead for help._

_Sam _wanted_ to help her, wanted to break down the door and tear her away from harm. God help her, she wanted to help that poor, terrified woman. She felt it so intensely that it made her bones vibrate. But she could only look. She could only watch as the woman stared out at her, her eyes pleading for Sam to do something, anything, that would end this nightmare. _

_Reality snapped back without any warning and speed picked up once again, and in the blink of an eye the blonde woman was gone. The breeze died out, leaving Sam nothing left to smell on the crisp air. Only that house, that empty window, that tree, and silence. Silence, quiet, and solitude._

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><p>Gasping, Sam shot up in bed as a horn blared outside the motel room her and her brother were holed up in. She didn't recall the name. Some random dive off a highway in Southern California, if she remembered right, where the sheets were scratchy and Sam worried about the cleanliness of the towels. And that stain on the ceiling was beginning to look suspiciously like blood. Hadn't the attendant said something about their pipes being rusty and needing to let the water run for a bit before a shower? And what the hell was that scratching noise she kept hearing? Lord help her if there were bugs in the room again; she'd start shooting things if she saw one more fucking cockroach.<p>

Needless to say, the room sucked. It was a craptastic shithole that she'd be all-too-pleased to leave behind the first chance they got. They'd stumbled in sometime around one in the morning and Sam had barely had the frame of mind to trade her purple shirt for the black tank top underneath and change in to boxers before she'd collapsed. She didn't know if Dean had even managed to pull his boots off; he'd, yet again, refused to let his sister drive, and instead had done the whole thirteen hours on nothing but four cups of coffee and one break for food. It was still dark outside, so she'd probably only caught a few hours before being ripped from her… whatever the hell that had been. She glanced at the clock and swore under her breath. 3:27AM. Motherfuck.

Sam flopped back down against her pillow, closing her eyes in frustration. She'd only gotten a little over two hours of sleep, and after a dream like _that_ there was no way she was getting any more. She was doomed to another day of heavy muscles and foggy thoughts, all because her brain couldn't stop tormenting her for one fucking night. Just one night where she got more than two or three hours, was that too much to fucking ask for?

Sam frowned. There was something bothering her about that dream, some fact she was missing that was clawing at the back of her mind, but it was just so hard to think right now that she didn't even bother trying to understand. Instead she half-slipped, half-fell out of bed and took the few shaky steps to the bathroom in silence. She leaned back against the door with a soft thud when it shut behind her and took a deep breath through her nose. The clawing soon turned into throbbing and Sam nearly started crying when she felt another migraine beginning. She was so fucking tired of these damn migraines. Must she have one after every intense or emotionally taxing dream? The rollercoaster she went through while she had them should be punishment enough without having to deal with the sensitivity to light and sound, or the nausea that always accompanied the sharp pain in her head after she woke up gasping for air. They'd all started months ago when she'd started having those visions about Roger, and now she just couldn't seem to get rid of them.

Thank all that was holy for medicine, though. Sam had tried at first to deal with the migraines on her own after she'd run out of her, but that plan had quickly failed. She'd been stuck in the motel room all day, lying under the covers on her bed with a damp washcloth on her neck and her head shoved under the pillow. The few times she'd rolled out of bed had been to crawl on her hands and knees to the bathroom so she could puke her guts into the toilet when the pain made her stomach churn. Dean hadn't been able to speak a word to her the whole time. Even a soft whisper felt like someone was screeching right next to her ears and brought tears to her eyes. The first and only time Dean had forgotten to shut their motel door in absolute silence had reduced Sam to a whimpering mess of tears and pain, and her brother had felt so bad that he'd stayed away from her for most of the day after that. But only after leaving her gifts of bottled water, Tylenol (which did nothing to help, but it was a sweet gesture), and a small store-bought sandwich within easy reach of her bed. Food hadn't sounded all that appetizing; in fact it had made Sam want to hurl again, but she'd known it was stupid to just upchuck stomach acid, and that the offering of turkey and bread would help with the burn. Dean had told her the same thing in a post-it note attached to the offending item. Only less gentle. And more demanding. Maybe just a little bit concerned, too. Even when absent, he was still telling her what to do.

After her migraine had been a little more manageable, Sam had stuffed cotton in her ears and stolen Dean's sunglasses, and the pair of them had booked it to the closest hospital. It had taken the doctor less than ten minutes to write her out a prescription for more medicine, though it wasn't Naratriptan this time. She'd told the doctor how that medicine hadn't been very effective, that she'd had to take twice the normal dose right from the get-go, and he had promptly written her out a prescription for this new medicine called Rizatriptan. She only had to take one pill, letting it dissolve on her tongue, and it worked like a dream. Honestly, it could be love.

Once she'd splashed some cold water on her face to wake herself up more, Sam quietly opened the door to the bathroom and stumbled around in the dark until she stubbed her toe on the very bag she was looking for. Cursing softly, she bent down and rummaged through her leather knapsack until she felt the familiar boxes of carefully foil-wrapped pills that Sam felt might be the closest thing to Heaven she'd ever get to experience. Trying not to make too much noise, she peeled back the foil to one of the pills and popped it on her tongue. It took a few minutes for it to dissolve completely, but once it had, Sam was happy. She searched through her bag once more and stopped this time when she'd found her stash of fruit bars she always ate with her meds. Even if there wasn't a risk of nausea, she'd always had a weak stomach against most kinds of medication, and eating something helped it settle without making her feel sick.

Nibbling on her artificially flavored blueberries and cream snack, Sam finally had the energy to think back to her dream. It had felt so vivid, so real, as if she would have been able to reach her hands out and feel the rough textures of that tree, or the soft tickles of the grass. And that need to help that woman had been so strong, it had almost been overpowering. And dammit it had all felt so _real_. Almost more real and vivid than actually being awake. Hell, she hadn't had a dream like that since her visions about Roger. Sam froze.

_'Oh fucking Hell, not again.'_ She swallowed the food past the lump in her throat and refrained from throwing the rest away, despite her sudden lack of appetite. She took the rest of it all in one last bite and barely chewed before she swallowed, just sitting there in the pitch blackness of the motel room, trying desperately not to fall pray to the panic attack she felt looming over her head. Old feelings she'd finally started putting behind her reared their heads. The crushing depression her brother had just begun to snap her out of, her boiling rage at the injustice of what had happened to her Roger, the overwhelming guilt she'd tried to ignore when she'd realized that her nightmares had been trying to warn her about that night. That had been the hardest feeling to get rid of, and she still hadn't been able to completely let it die out. Every day, somewhere in the back of her mind, there were the whispers that she should have realized those visions had been warnings, that she should have saved her boyfriend from bursting into flames, that she failed, that his blood was on her hands. Even worse was the notion that if she hadn't caved to her brother and gone with him in search of their dad to Jericho, she would have been there to help Roger fight off whatever had killed him, and the two of them could be happy in their little apartment right now. All of this came back in full-swing when Sam made the connection that she was having another vision, though she didn't know why because she'd never seen that blonde woman in her entire life.

Sam sat on the carpet by their bags for several long minutes, contemplating this new revelation while Dean snored lightly in his sleep. Her depression, anger, and guilt all quieted done to grumbling mutters in the back of her mind while her cold, practical side took over, analyzing every speck of her dream. She ran it through at least a dozen times before finally sighing and grabbing some clothes blindly out of her bag and shuffling off towards the bathroom. The throbbing that had been growing was subsiding at a reasonable rate, and Sam looked forward to enjoying her customary shower in the dark. It was always such a nice place to think; all that warmth and humidity seemed to give her brain more clarity when it was needed. If nothing else, she'd be able to wash the sweat and remnants of her latest vision down the drain.

When all was said and done, Sam got dressed and wrapped her hair up in a towel. She turned on the bathroom light and wiped the condensation off the mirror, clearing a space for her reflection. She mused that, ironically, the time she'd spent Hunting with her brother was doing her some good. Admittedly, she had extremely dark circles under her eyes, betraying her lack of sleep, but her face didn't look quite so gaunt anymore. She had some color and life back in her face, and her hazel blue eyes were sparkling with intelligence once more. The white towel kept her brown hair hidden away from view, but it had grown out since she'd first left Stanford. It was a good three inches past her shoulders now, though she kept her bangs dutifully trimmed. A few wisps of the short, blunt bangs had fallen out from the towel and hung wispy against her forehead. Sure, at the beginning, she'd looked hollow and empty, but all of the work to focus on had given her the strength to bury the worst of her drama and settle on just living in the _here_ and _now_. Ironic that the reason something inside her soul had fundamentally withered away was what gave her the strength to keep going.

Sam pulled the sleeves of her long, wine colored V-neck shirt up from her wrists until the fabric was bunched at her elbows and gave her reflection a quick nod. These visions were fine. They were okay. Well... no, actually, they weren't. They were freaky as fuck, and Sam had no fucking idea why she was having them, but she could deal with them. Granted, she didn't know exactly _how_ she was going to deal with them, but she'd figured it out. Whether she was able to sort out her freakishly real nightmares or not, one thing was for sure, she wasn't letting anyone else die if she had the power to stop them from coming true.

Opening the bathroom door once more, Sam crept into the black room and pulled her brush from her leather bag before shuffling off to stand in front of the foggy mirror again. She let her hair fall loose from the towel and quickly brushed away the knots, straightening her bangs and letting it all hang loose to air dry. She was blessed with a lack of cowlicks, so after it was all brushed out and dry, she'd pull it back into a tight ponytail and that would be that. No special attention necessary, which was just as well, because she honestly didn't give her hair any special treatment like other girls. She didn't really do much of anything girls her age did, truth be told. Burning bones and setting mythical nasties on fire didn't really fall under a category for 'normal'.

Sam set her brush down on the sink and walked silently over to her bed. She felt more alive now that she'd had some medicine and a shower. Not worrying about Dean hounding her ass about using all the hot water was a bonus to constantly waking up at odd hours of the night, and Sam had been able to take her sweet time. Guess these nightmare, vision things had some perks. The clock read 4:52AM. There was a Ma-and-Pa diner just down the highway that would be open soon; Sam could pop in and grab them both breakfast and some go-juice in less than an hour. But what to do until then?

Sam, having left the bathroom light on and the door halfway open to give her something to find her way around in the dark motel room, softly opened the top drawer of the nightstand between her bed and Dean's and pulled out a complimentary pen and notepad. There was writing on the first page that said, 'For a good time call 562-889-7435.' She scoffed and ripped the page off, settling instead of the empty white underneath. No 'good times' for her, thanks. She was kind of busy. Ya know, what with trying to figure _whatthefuck_ was happening to her and all. Her mind wandered over different aspects of the vision as she slowly pulled the cap off and pushed it on to the opposite side of the pen, tapping her fingers lightly on the small square of paper. There were many different things she could draw about her dream, but for some reason her mind kept getting stuck on that bare tree in the front yard. Sam shrugged and put pen to paper.

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><p>It was three hours later that Sam found herself sitting on her brother's bed, working on her fifth drawing of the same damn tree. She'd left at exactly 5:15 to go get some food for the two of them, and by the time she'd left carrying two large coffees and a bag of two breakfast burritos (one with an obscene amount of grease and bacon, and Sam's only slightly healthier with vegetables in place of meat), and hashbrowns, it had been 5:40. Dean had been none too pleased with her when she'd slammed the door with her foot and jarred him awake at such an ungodly hour, but the coffee and food had won over his forgiveness. But only after a good glare and a carelessly tossed, "Sammy, there is something <em>wrong<em> with you if you're actually _used_ to being awake before nine," because he had to make it seem like he wasn't that easy. Dean obviously forgot who he was dealing with. She'd mentioned the bacon and extra cheese on his burrito, and he'd been all smiles. She hadn't bothered waiting for him to finish his shower to eat, and instead had wolfed her share down in record time, going back to the notepad and pen. When Dean had finished his breakfast, he'd whipped out Sam's laptop and quickly started browsing for their next job. Normally she would have gotten on his ass about asking her first to use her shit like that, but she was so wrapped up in her sketches that she'd hardly noticed the whirr of her trusty computer.

Dean cleared his throat, snapping Sam from her concentration, and she looked up at him, signaling he had her attention. Her eyes flitted back to the paper, however, and once she'd finished the shading of her tree as she'd seen it in her dream, she flipped to a fresh page and began again. Sam prided herself on being a better-than-average artist, and she was sure that if she'd actually gone to school on at least a somewhat regular basis in her childhood, she'd be a pretty damn good artist by now, but as it stood, she settled for her raw, undeveloped talent.

Sam had no idea why this damn tree was bothering her so much. As soon as she'd started sketching it out, she couldn't seem to stop. She knew it was important, that if she understood why she was latching onto this one single thing from her vision, then she'd understand what it all meant. It was the key, though exactly why was beyond her. But still, she had to draw it. Maybe if she shaded it a little differently, or focused more on the branches on the next one, or drew in the textured roughness of the bark more precisely, she'd have a moment of clarity and finally be able to make sense of it. She'd be able to keep this woman from dying.

"Hey!" Sam jumped and looked up at Dean. He was sitting at the cheap table by the window, his left hand resting on her laptop and his right in his lap. His green eyes were narrowed in annoyance and his mouth pursed together. Crap. Had she missed him talking to her again? "Am I boring you with this hunting-evil stuff?" Sam kept her face calm by sheer force of will. Damn, but her brother had a way of making her squirm when he looked like that. It had made her confess many an infraction to him when she'd been a little girl and it had been his job to raise her. However years of experience had given Sam what she needed to hide how effective it still was. Lord knows how much more Dean would use it if he knew he could still make her want to be that honest.

"No," Sam muttered, "I'm listening. Keep going." Dean didn't look convinced but Sam turned her attention back to her drawings. She flipped through them quickly, trying to see if any of them gave a spark of insight, but still nothing. Sighing softly, she flipped to her most recent one and touched up the last few details.

"Hey _Sam_!" Sam flicked her eyes up to her brother.

"What?"

"What do you mean, 'what'? I've been calling your name for the least five minutes! Have you been listening to _any_ of the possible cases I've been describing to you?" Sam gave him a sheepish smile and scratched at the back of her head. His brow pulled together and he crossed his arms in response.

"Sorry, man, I've just been a little distracted with this…" she gestured aimlessly at the pad in her left hand with the pen in her right and looked back down at her latest sketch. Holy shit. Her mind finally had that spark, that click that she'd been chasing after and Sam flicked through the other sketches. She knew this tree. Not just from her dream, though. She _knew_ this tree, from a picture that had burned up a lifetime ago. "Wait a second, I've seen this before."

"Seen what?" Sam jumped off her brother's bed in lieu of an answer and dashed across the room to where his bag of junk lay half open on the dresser. She shoved aside his pants and shirts, digging for the familiar brown leather book she knew was buried somewhere deep inside. Dean took a sip of his coffee and pondered his sister for a second. "What're you doin', Sammy?"

Sam tore their dad's Hunting journal out from the bag and turned back to her brother's bed. She set the pad and pen down and ripped the journal open. She'd nearly memorized every page between these two covers, she'd been over them so much, but it wasn't information on a supernatural creature she was after this time. No ghosts, ghouls, Wendigos (thank God), revanants, shifters, sirens, vetalas (whatever the hell _those_ were, they sounded especially nasty), or any other kind of nasty required her to dig through their dad's pool of information. It was a picture hidden behind scraps of articles and different clippings that had all been stuffed into the flap of the front cover the needed her attention this time. It took some shuffling and well-placed cursing, but Sam finally got it and grabbed both the picture and the motel pad with her trees on them.

The picture was of her family. Her mother, her father, Dean when he was four, and baby Samantha, barely two months old. Her mother and father were both smiling happily as Mary Winchester held their sleeping daughter up for the camera, and Dean was looking off to the side at something that had caught his attention. Sam had had a copy of this picture with her at Stanford. She couldn't ever remember her father smiling like that, looking so carefree and happy. Sam brushed the familiar sadness aside and covered the foreign family with the notepad, placing her sketch next to the real life model off in the corner. The same tree she'd seen in her dream. Her sketch was messy, but essentially it was the same tree as the one in the photograph.

This was where her dream was leading her. That woman from her dream was back home in Kansas, but not just any home. Back in _their_ old home. The same one their mother had died in. The same home that supernatural piece of shit had burned her in, pinned to the ceiling, blood dripping from her stomach and into Samantha's crib. That blonde lady from her dream had been so frightened, something _had_ to be wrong. There was some kind of danger to her. Maybe… Maybe even the same thing that had killed their mom and killed Roger. Sam didn't want to let herself get her hopes up, but it was so hard when the taste of revenge was right on the tip of her tongue.

Sam was headed to Kansas. No question about it. That was her next stop, no matter what… now she just had to convince Dean that he should join her.

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><p><strong>Ohhhhhhh snap!<strong>

**Fyi, the two medications I mentioned are actual prescription migraine medications. They aren't for prevention, though, they're taken during a migraine, constricting blood vessels in the brain to fight against migraines.**

**I think Sam's rubbing off on me, it took me hours of research and links leading me all over the place to find the right ones that I wanted to use. Ah, what I do for you, my chickadees.**

**Peace.**


	2. Out in the Open

**Bon jour, mes amis!**

**So this will be the last update for a few days, because I'm still working on the next chapter. I'm debating whether to go with a scene that I've written completely from scratch, or just go on to the next part in the episode. Honestly, I think I'll go with the next part in the episode. Writing a whole scene for Dean without any reference really scares me. It's so intimidating for me to write true to his character, on my own. I dunno how people do it. Makes me a little jealous. Ha ha.**

**Butchyeah. Hope you like this chapter! Dean finally knows Sammy's big secret! Dun dun DUN!**

**Thoughts? Likes? Dislikes? Anything you want to say? Reviews are the way to go! Get it? Got it? Good. Now get a move on it!**

**Much love,**

**MD**

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!**_

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><p>Sam was headed to Kansas. No question about it. That was her next stop, no matter what… now she just had to convince Dean that he should join her.<p>

"Dean," Sam looked up at her brother and knew she looked a little manic, if his worried and apprehensive expression was any judge of that, but she didn't give a shit how she looked right now, "I know where we have to go next." He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"Where?"

"Back home." Sam breathed, "Back to Kansas." If she only had a camera at that exact moment. Sam couldn't have chosen anything that would have stunned her brother more than that declaration. His eyes widened and eyebrows shot up in surprise, and his mouth fell open just the slightest bit. He blinked at her, then scrunched up his face in suspicion, probably thinking she was pulling some lame prank over on him. Sam simply poured all of her determination and honesty into her eyes as she kept her gaze level with his. She could see that he knew she was serious when his shoulders slumped a little bit.

"Okay, random. Where'd _that_ come from?" Sam bit her lip and looked down at the two pictures in her hand. She tossed the notepad aside and walked over to where Dean sat. How the hell was she going to pull this off without telling her brother about her visions? She had absolutely no fucking idea, that's how. She had to wing it, because she just didn't have the time to think up a lie, and they had to leave and start heading east like… _yesterday_.

"All right, uhm," Sam stopped next to her brother and set the photo down in front of him, "this photo was taken in front of our old house, right? There one where Mom died?" Dean reached out and picked up the wrinkled photo. Sam saw a flicker of the same sadness she'd pushed to the side when his eyes fell on their mother's face and felt a twinge of guilt at asking this of her brother. Maybe she should have done this one alone, told her brother that she was going to visit some old friend for a week or so. Doing this was going to hurt him so much more than it would her, but she'd already brought it up, she couldn't just back out now. And besides, if this _was_ the thing that had killed Roger and their mom (God have mercy if it was), Dean would beat her seven ways to Sunday if she kept him out of it. Dean set the photo down and looked back up at Sam.

"Yeah," he grumbled. Sam chewed at her lip and slid into the seat across from him.

"But it didn't burn down; not completely anyway, yeah? I mean, they rebuilt it, right?"

"I guess so, yeah. Sammy, what the hell are you talking about?" Ugh, she still had no fucking idea what to say. She thought about telling him the truth. Well… half of the truth anyway. Sam looked down at her wringing hands for a moment before steeling her nerves and facing her brother again.

"Okay, look, this is going to sound batshit crazy but, the people who live in our old house…" Sam bit her lip, faltering for a moment before pressing on, "I think they might be in danger." Dean's eyes widened with first worry, then confusion, then a mixture of both. He didn't quite know what to feel from the looks of things. Funny, neither did Sam.

"Why would you think that?"

"Uh… it's just, uhm…" Sam fumbled around for _some_ kind of an explanation. She had no clue how to convince him to leave with her, but what was she supposed to tell him? _'Well, older brother of mine, I seem to have psychic abilities that let me know when people are in danger. I had one last night about this woman in our old house that holds horrific trauma for you. Care to tag along? Smashing!'_ Yeah. Right. "Look just… just trust me on this, okay?" Sam jumped out of her chair, needing the space away from her brother and his piercing stare. Sometimes, she desperately wished Dean didn't know her so well. It was so fucking hard to keep things from him.

"Okay, whoa, whoa, trust you?" Sam reached down for her knapsack and threw it on her bed. She headed for the bathroom and grabbed her brush off the sink and pajamas off the floor to pack away in her bag.

"Yeah. Trust. You know, that thing where you believe what I tell you because I'm your sister?" Dean rolled his eyes and stood up, walking over to where Sam was reorganizing things in her bag for no other reason than to not look up at his green eyes that left no room for secrets. She'd packed her bag up last night, right before she'd left for breakfast.

"C'mon, Sammy, that's weak. You gotta give me a little bit more than that." Sam sighed in frustration, hoping by some random act of God that he would take her at her word just this once. She refused to tell him she had these visions. He'd want proof they were real, which would mean letting him on the secret that Mary had almost killed her with. She'd had visions about her boyfriend burning, pinned to the ceiling of their apartment for a good week before it happened, at the very least. She absolutely couldn't tell him that, that was something Sam was going to take with her to the grave. In all their travels, they got lots of strange looks. Sam was used to feeling like a freak or an outcast among other people; they were innocent civilians who didn't have a clue what she fought against for a living. Her brother was a different story, however. He was the one person who accepted her unconditionally, and never, not once, had he looked at her like she was a science experiment gone wrong. It was inevitable for him to see her that way when he found out that his baby sister had morphed into this psychic wonder while he wasn't looking. And even better, his disappointment that she had let Roger die when she'd had ample warning would be the cherry right on the fucking top. No… no, Sam _refused_ to tell her brother about her visions.

"Look, Dean," Sam pleaded into her pile of shirts and jeans, "I can't really explain it is all."

"Well _tough_," Dean growled next to her, "I'm not going anywhere until you do." Sam sighed and closed her eyes in dismay, straightening up. She opened her eyelids and stared over at her annoyed brother. He raised his eyebrows expectantly at her. She pursed her lips. Maybe it _was_ better for her to do this on her own. Sam could sacrifice everything to get the job done, except for her brother. She was not going to lose her brother.

Dean's main expression was irritation. He was obviously very frustrated with Sam and her eccentric and random sucker punch she'd hit him with. Her lack of explanation was only adding insult to injury. But there was concern there too; Sam could see it in his eyes. He was worried about what had his baby sister so freaked out that she couldn't even confide in _him_ of all people, the one person she'd never shut out. Though, now that she thought about it, she'd been doing that a lot to him lately. She refused to talk to him about Roger and his death, wouldn't open up about her nightmares when they were so obviously driving her off her knocker, had all but shoved his help down his throat in Black Water after verbally slapping him in the face, and hadn't told him her secret during the whole Bloody Mary incident. He was probably feeling those two years of distance more than Sam realized. He'd tried so many times to talk to her, going against his usual suck-it-up-and-shove-it-down attitude because he cared and wanted to take care of her. He wanted to make sure she was okay, and she hadn't been making that part of his job easy as of late. Sam passed a hand over her face, wearily, suddenly remembering how little sleep she'd gotten with a dull ache behind her eyes.

God dammit. She couldn't keep it from him anymore if she wanted him to trust her at all. If she shut him out right now, then he was going to treat her like everyone _else _they came across in their lives, like a stranger. Fucking older brothers and their fucking protectiveness and _stupid fucking_ caring about shit. If he looked at her like she had a third eyes, she was gonna scream.

"I…" Sam's voice cracked. She cleared her voice and Dean folded his arms in front of his chest again, waiting. "I have these nightmares." He rolled his eyes.

"I've noticed." Sam flinched. Moment of truth, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. What's the verdict?

"And sometimes… they come true." The silence that followed sounded louder to Sam's anxious ears than any gunshot she'd ever heard. Dean's face seemed frozen for a second before it melted into complete disbelief and confusion.

"Come again?" Sam bit her lip, wishing more than anything she could take the words back. But, it was kind of liberating to finally get this off her chest. It wouldn't be chipping away at her anymore, someone else would know. If she could just make him understand that she hadn't realized what it meant at the time. As long as she could stop him from blaming her for Roger, they'd be good. Oh, and ya know, if he didn't treat her like some supernatural freak. That'd be kinda nice too.

"Look, Dean," Sam muttered, voice barely above a whisper, "I dreamt about Roger's death. For _days_ before it happened." Dean's face fell a little at that. He looked a little lost, his brow furrowed in deep thought as he sat down on the edge of his bed, facing the messy sheets on Sam's own mattress. At least it wasn't revulsion or disappointment. That was something. Right? Right...

"People have weird dreams all the time, Sammy, maybe it was just a coincidence." Sam almost started crying out of relief when he called her Sammy, but she kept herself in check. God, since when was she such a crier? She'd grown out of that years ago. She was stronger than this; Sam had _made_ herself stronger than this.

"No, I dreamt about the blood dripping, him pinned to the ceiling, the fire, everything. And, Dean, you have to believe me," Sam frantically sat in front of her brother, on the edge of her own bed, desperately imploring him with her eyes to believe what she was saying. The words were spilling from her mouth now, faster than she could stop them, "I didn't do anything about it because I didn't know what it meant. I didn't believe it. I just thought I was having a reoccurring nightmare until the night it happened. And now I'm dreaming about that tree, about our house, and about some woman inside screaming for help. I mean, that's where it all started, Dean, this has to mean something, right?" It just felt so good to finally unload on her brother as she'd done so often in the past, to finally be able to tell him her worst secret and pray to God that he didn't hate her for it that there hadn't been any hope of her stopping. She was finally speaking her fears out to someone else, the person she trusted more than anyone else, and it felt so _good_ to be honest with him. It almost outweighed her panic at his reaction to this newfound knowledge. Almost.

Dean looked at her, his eyes overwhelmed with all of the revelations she'd forced on him. He looked down at the picture of their family he'd brought over from the table, and Sam nervously chewed her lip, bouncing her leg with the tension and jittery energy she didn't know how to release. She wrung her hands, just waiting for him to see the light and throw her out. She wanted to run out the door before he could tell her to leave, or throw herself against him and cry, but all she could do was sit there, waiting for him to process everything. It was the worst feeling ever.

"I don't, Jesus, I don't know, Sammy." This wasn't her fault, and she was trying to stop it from happening again. She wasn't a bad person, see? She was just trying to stop history from repeating itself. There was someone out there she could help, and she wanted him, _needed_ him to understand.

"This woman might be in danger, Dean. I can't let something happen to her, not when I know that I'm being warned this time." Her brother was still looking at the picture in his hands, lost, and Sam threw the last thing at him that she could, hoping to catch his agreement, "I mean, for all we know, this could be the thing that killed Mom and Roger."

"All right, just slow down, would ya?" Dean yelled, hopping up from the bed to pace around the room. Sam jumped at the sudden outburst, but snapped her mouth shut. Her vision blurred as tears welled up in her eyes, but she ducked her head down, hiding behind her bangs, determined not to let her brother see. She couldn't help the few that escaped and fell gently onto her hands, and she sniffled as quietly as she could while her brother was deep in thought. Dean chuckled humorlessly above her, stopping on the other side of his bed and faced Sam, who dutifully kept her head down. Fucking crybaby.

"I mean, first you tell me you've got the shining, and then you tell I've got to back home?" His voice sounded incredulous and a little hurt, and fresh tears made silent tracks down Sam's cheeks. She knew he was hurt she'd kept this secret from him, but her reasons had been damn good, and apparently completely valid. Dean saw her differently. She was a freak. A psychic, supernatural freak. She just wanted to crawl under the covers and die. "Especially when I swore to myself that I'd never go back there?"

That had been said so softly Sam had almost missed it, but there was no missing the utter heartbreak in Dean's voice. Fresh guilt weighed her shoulders down and Sam felt crushed under it all. She should have just done this shit on her own. Not only had she hurt her brother by hiding this secret from him, but she'd hurt him by dredging up painful memories and demanding he go back to where it all started. Sam had to be the worst fucking sister on the face of the planet. She couldn't help it this time when she sucked in a breath and a quiet sob slipped past her lips.

Dean rushed over to where Sam was seated on her bed and sat next to her, his arm around her shoulder in an instant.

"Sammy? Sammy, what's wrong?" His voice sounded panicky and confused. Sam choked out a wet sobbing laugh at herself. That stupid little nickname, muttered softly into her hair, like he still was worried about her, like he still _cared_ about her the same, and that was all it took for her walls to crumble to the ground. She turned her head into his shoulder and cried like she hadn't since the night of the fire. She grabbed the black t-shirt under his open red flannel and sobbed without abandon. She felt his arm tighten around her, tucking her tighter against him, and his other arm come up and softly stroked her hair. Here he was, completely freaking out because of her verbal explosion and demands that she return to what was, in all likelihood, his least favorite place in the whole world, and he still put her first. Sam was positively ashamed of herself, but she just couldn't make her tears stop. She needed the comfort, the reassurance that he was still her brother. Even as she feared his reactions, Sam desperately craved his security and consolation. It was all she could do to keep him there with her while she battled with the urge to run from him before he could do it first, or make him stay and tell her she wasn't some kind of mutant.

She was crying for so many things. Crying for all of her guilt when she'd realized she'd just let the love of her life burn to death after getting a warning, for the burden of keeping this from her older brother, the fear that he wouldn't love her anymore or worse – that he'd _pretend_ he did, the self-reproach at forcing her brother to comfort her, the fear that someone else was going to die because Sam failed again. She unloaded it all into her brother's shirt with hot, wet, fat tears and choked sobs of anguish and shame. He did the same thing to her that he had the night Roger had died, simply holding her against him and letting her cry. He hummed some tuneless melody (probably Metallica. He always find them calming, though Sam had no idea why. She preferred to listen to GNR when she needed to chill.) and rubbed soft circles onto her shoulder, rocking her back and forth just a little bit. Whatever power he had worked like fucking magic, because in no time at all, Samantha calmed down to just sniffling against her hiding spot in the crook of his neck. Dean let her calm for a few more moments before gently pulling her away from him so she was sitting up once more.

The hand he had in her hair fell away, but he kept one slung over her shoulder, looking down at her softly.

"Finished?" Sam sniffled and nodded, wiping away the evidence of her breakdown on the backs of her hands. "Wanna tell me what that was all about?" Sam heaved a broken sigh.

"I just… I'm so sorry, Dean. God, I'm so fucking sorry. I didn't mean to just overwhelm you like that, and I know I'm the world's biggest freak of nature and a whiny little shit sometimes, but I swear to you if I'd'a known what my nightmares meant, Roger never would have died. I'm just so sorry. I'm sorry for keeping it from you and making you worry, and I'm sorry for making you look out for me when you probably don't want to be anywhere near me right now. I'm sorry for pushing you away when all you've been trying to do is help. I'm sorry for always snapping at you about not finding Dad. I'm sorry for arguing with you about the man, you're not the one I'm mad at, so I shouldn't be taking you for granted. I'm always making your life harder and… shit. I can't… I… I'm just so fucking _sorry_, Dean." By the end of her second rambling, her voice was trembling, and her eyes felt wet again. Dean was shaking his head at her, a look of disbelief on his face.

"Hey, I know that what happened with Roger wasn't your fault, Sam. I raised you myself, kiddo, I know you would have died trying to save him if you had realized what all this crazy shit meant. But… Sammy, please tell me you know I don't see you different." Sam couldn't meet his eyes, and instead focused on a spot over his shoulder on a the wall behind him. She didn't need to say anything, he'd always been able to practically read her mind. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what she was so scared of. "Look at me." Sam shook her head. "Samantha, _look_ at me right now." Hesitantly, her eyes drifted over to Dean's shoulder, and traveled up his neck, his scruffy stubble, his too-full-and-too-feminine-for-a-guy mouth, and his light freckles until finally she met his dark green eyes. He looked angry at her. Sam thought she felt her lip tremble, but she held her own. She was a Winchester, after all.

"Samantha Rae Winchester, I will say this only once, so you listen good to me. Nothing you could do or be could possibly change that you're my sister. You are my _baby_ sister, and you're an annoying, stubborn little shit sometimes, but it's my job to look out for you, and some weirdo, freaky vision crap isn't going to change that. Do you understand me?" Yep, her lip was definitely trembling now. She wanted to believe him, so badly, but it felt like just another treat that would be dangled in front of her then yanked away all too soon. The sense of relief was out of her control though, and it warmed away her dread and fear just a little. She nodded, but Dean shook his head, unsatisfied with that response. "Do you _understand_ me?" She swallowed the lump in the back of her mouth down and cleared her throat to talk.

"Okay, sure." He nodded and brought his arm away from her shoulder.

"Don't think any stupid shit like that again." Sam smiled weakly at him when she saw the twinkle in his eye that showed he was only teasing and he wasn't all that angry. The laughter left his eyes though, once he was convinced she was reassured and he furrowed his brow in thought again. "You're sure this is back in Lawrence?" Sam nodded.

"Positive." Dean shook his head and passed a hand through his hair. She could tell he was still hesitant to go, but Sam just didn't have it in her to try and reason with him now. Not after that little meltdown. She just sighed, at the end of her rope. "Dean, we have to check this out. Just to make sure." Sam's voice was soft, and scratchy from the misuse, but she knew her brother heard her. He hung his head for a moment before looking up at Sam and nodding in resignation, his eyes cold and hard. Another vestige of guilt wormed its way up from the back of her mind, and Sam had to look away. That look in his eyes was all her fault.

"I know we do."

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><p><strong>What did you think of the little tidbit I added where Sam freaks out and apologizes and stuff? Dean isn't out-of-character, is he?<strong>

**Reviews! Please and thank you!**

**Peace.**


	3. Lucy, I'm Home!

**Hello, mein darlings!**

**I dun has much to say this time around. Just the usual. Hope you enjoy the chapter, please leave me a review, and I'll try to update as soon as I can!**

**Love! You want to leave me love! LEAVE ME LOVE!**

**Yours,**

**MD**

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_**

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><p>It was an eerie feeling, standing on the doorstep of their old house while they waited for someone else to answer the door. This house was the place where it had all started for them. This is where Samantha and Dean Winchester, the children, had died, and <em>SamandDean<em> the Hunters were born. Which, in all honesty, was truly pathetic when one considered that Dean had been only four, and Sam just six months old. Sure, there were eight years where she'd been given the closest thing to a childhood their broken family could manage, but she'd always known she was different. Wasn't sure exactly what gave it away, but even in her five-year-old innocence and naivety she'd known. Maybe it was the salt lines set at every door and window Dean had checked every hour, or perhaps it was the knife she'd found under her brother's pillow when she was six. Maybe even it had just been the way her father and brother had carried themselves, like they were separated from the rest of the world carrying secrets better left in graveyards. Whatever the cause, the root of it all had been this house, and here they were again. Full fucking circle. Will wonders never cease?

Sam pulled herself to attention when a young woman pulled the door open. Her hair was a light blonde, pulled back into a half-ponytail, and her nose was just a little bit crooked. She had slender eyebrows, a full mouth, and dark eyes perked in confusion. She didn't have the blue top Sam had seen her wear in her vision, but instead had a on a burnt-red long-sleeved top and jeans. Sam was taken aback for a moment by the face from her dream staring out at them from behind the door that she almost missed the beginnings of the conversation.

"Yes?" the woman asked, confused. Dean adopted a serious expression and moved to answer when Sam remained silent, still gaping at the puzzled woman.

"Sorry to bother you ma'am, we're with the Federal –"

"I'm Samantha Winchester, but you can call me Sam." Sam interrupted her brother, much to his surprise, and decided to go for the truth. Well, most of the truth. She didn't want to lie to the lady, not at this place. Of all places, Sam refused to lie to this lady _here_, if she could help it, "And this is my brother, Dean. Uhm, we used to live here. We were just… we were just driving by, and were wondering if we could come see the old place."

The lady looked thoughtful for a moment, her eyes darting between Sam and her brother before recognition rose her eyebrows and she smiled softly.

"Winchester. Yeah, that's so funny. You know, I think I found some of your photos the other night." Well _that_ hadn't been the reaction Sam had been expecting. Dean hadn't been expecting that either, if his raised eyebrows and wide eyes were anything to go by.

"You did?" He asked. Sam idly wondered what memories have been captured in the photographs before that life had burned to ash while the lady nodded. She looked back into the house distractedly for a second before turning back to the siblings and stepping aside and pulling the door open even more.

"Come on in. My name's Jenny." Sam smiled softly and nodded her head in acknowledgement.

"It's nice to meet you, Jenny. Thanks for being so accommodating." Jenny smiled at Sam before turning around and heading off to the right, towards the kitchen. Sam followed with Dean trailing behind in uncomfortable silence. She could almost feel the tension rolling off of him as he struggled to stay composed. Not for the first time, she debated the pros of having done this job on her own, despite the wrath she would have incurred from her older brother once he found out. Also not for the first time, Sam washed herself in shame at the relief that her brother was here to support her. God, she was such a fucking baby. And since when did she act like some needy little girl? Fucking grow up already.

In the kitchen, a young toddler stood in his playpen, jumping up and down, demanding juice, while his older sister sat at the dining room table doing her homework dutifully. The young boy had light brown hair, on the verge of being blonde, while the girl had deep, rich, brown hair that hung past her shoulders. Jenny headed for the refrigerator and opened after taking care of the child-proof lock on the side.

"That's Ritchie over there. He's kind of a juice junkie," Jenny said affectionately towards her son, pulling out a sippie cup of what looked like orange juice and walking towards the playpen, "but hey, at least he won't get scurvy." She handed over the small cup to her son and patted his head before smiling and turning back to her two guests. She walked back over to stand behind her daughter. "Sari, this is Sam and Dean. They used to live here."

Sari looked up at the two strangers curiously. She looked at Dean first, taking in his black jacket and scruffy appearance before turning to Sam and taking in her wrinkled shirt and untidy ponytail. They made quite a pair, those two.

"Hi," the young girl muttered softly. Sam felt a soft smile pulling at her lips. Sari sounded so much smaller than she was, and she ducked her head shyly. Dean waved awkwardly at the child, opting for silence.

"Hey, Sari," Sam kept her voice just as quiet as the girl's as Jenny turned around to rinse some dishes in the sink. Sari smiled a little at Sam, her eyes twinkling at what she probably thought as a kindred spirit. For a fleeting moment, Sam was insanely jealous of the young girl's innocence, and then, quick as it had come, it was gone.

"So you just moved in?" Dean inquired. Apparently the little girl's inspection was making him uncomfortable, so he'd decided to turn his attention back to Jenny. Adults he knew how to handle. Children might as well have been alien invaders. Except for Lucas, but that had been a rare anomaly. Jenny turned back to Dean and nodded.

"Uh, yeah, from Wichita." Sam took listening to their conversation without actually participating in it. She was too busy taking in the house. _She_ had been too young when they'd left this behind to have any memories here. She wasn't all that sure what exactly was the same and what had changed, but by God, she was going to memorize every detail she saw and burn it into the back of her retinas. Never again would she see this house, probably even Lawrence, after they left, so if these memories were all she had of the house she'd lived in with her family (while it could still be called such) then she was going to make damn sure they had every nook and cranny.

"So you have family here or…?" Dean let his question hang in the air and Jenny shifted uneasily. She walked over to her daughter and stroked her hair as the young girl smiled up at her.

"No, I just uh…" Jenny chewed on her lip for a second before halting her hand and looking anxiously up at the siblings, "I just needed a fresh start, that's all. So, new town, new job – at least, so soon as I find one. And a new house."

Dean's eyes glazed over a little bit as both him and Sam took in this new information, but she didn't spare him more than a quick flick of her eyes before deciding to step in to the conversation. She was worried about her brother's emotional stability, or lack thereof, but she _had_ to know that her weird dream had only been that. Just some freaky dream. Freaky enough that she'd dreamt about Jenny when Sam had never seen her before in her entire life, but that didn't mean that everything about that dream had been right… right? Jenny wasn't in danger. Maybe.

"So," Sam could barely contain the tension in her own voice, "how you likin' it so far?" Jenny's lips pursed and her face hardened a little as she looked around the kitchen. Her change in behavior didn't sit well with Sam.

"Well, all due respect to your childhood home – I mean, I'm sure you have lots of happy memories here – but," Dean smiled weakly at Jenny, "this place has its issues."

Please, for the love of God and all that is holy on this planet, don't let there be something supernatural going on. If there any sort of higher-power out in the universe had any shred of decency and mercy, this family would be safe and unharmed.

Dean paled.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked. Her brother didn't look like he could find his voice at the moment. Jenny pursed her lips as she looked around the kitchen suspiciously once more before turning her attention back to the pair.

"Well, it's just getting old. Like the wiring, you know? We've got flickering lights almost hourly." Okay, so flickering lights was a sign of a malicious spirit, but that didn't mean they were being haunted. No reason to panic just yet. Just… just flickering lights. Sam shared a look with her brother. He gulped. She tensed. The Doublemint Twins were on the same wavelength again.

"That's too bad, Jenny. What else?" Dean's voice was surprisingly calm considering how nervous he looked. He appeared as if nothing would make him happier than to just bolt right that very second, but he hunched his shoulders and dug his hands deep into his pockets instead. Sam bit her lip as Sari quirked an eyebrow at Sam's sudden nervousness.

"Uhm, sink's backed up. There's uh, rat's in the basement." Please, oh please, oh please let her have _spotted_ the rats. Jenny looked between Sam and Dean, and smiled sympathetically. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to complain…"

"No, it's okay. Have you actually _seen_ the rats, or is it just the scratching?" Dean sounded close to desperate at this point, and Sam had to wonder if she would have sounded any different if she could manage speaking at the moment. Probably not. Jenny looked surprised, then thoughtful as she narrowed her eyes in confusion.

"It's just the scratching, actually."

Fuck. Okay, flickering lights, scratching, and if there wasn't anything in her sink that was naturally making it clogged, that was a sign too. Definitely a spirit then.

"Mom?" Sam and Dean used the distraction to look at each other. His eyes were tense, his face taut, lips set in a hard line. He gave her a worried and quizzical look, as if she could tell him how she'd known this was happening. Sam just shrugged. _She_ had no idea where these visions were coming from or why they were happening to her. She was just glad she could help. Her brother's stare shifted from searching to concerned and his lip twitched, like he wanted to say something. Probably tell her that this was okay, she was okay, he'd protect her, and they'd figure this out. She smiled weakly in response, silently thanking him for his support. However little it made her feel better.

"Ask them if it was here when they lived here, Mommy." Jenny crouched down next to her daughter and frowned, looking over to her guests to see if they'd caught that. Her face tightened a little bit when she saw that they had.

"What, Sari?" Sam asked. The girl peeked up at Sam from before looking down at the math work in front of her.

"The thing in my closet," she muttered. Sam could feel herself pale. She'd dreamed about something happening to Jenny, but she hadn't seen anything happen to the kids. What if it got to them before it went after their mom? What if it was already going after them?

"Oh, no, baby. There was nothing in their closets. Right?" Jenny smiled up at Sam and Dean. He chuckled nervously, shaking his head just the slightest bit. Sam pulled her lips up in a smile she had absolutely no conviction in.

"No," Sam told Sari, who looked like she didn't believe a single word she was hearing, "no, of course not."

Jenny turned back to her daughter and put her hand on Sari's shoulder lovingly.

"Sari just had a nightmare the other night." Sari frowned at this and looked at her mom, unhappy.

"I wasn't dreaming!" she exclaimed stubbornly, "It came into my bedroom, and it was on fire!" For what had to be a full minute, Sam stopped breathing. She could feel something constricting in her chest, and suddenly, what had been a memory of some long-forgotten dream now felt like a prison. The fake smile instantly slipped off her face, and for a while she just gaped at the little girl. This was so far off the spectrum of weird, even for them, that Sam wasn't quite sure what to do. She sure as Hell couldn't say anything more, that was for sure, not until she was out of the house at least.

Sam looked frantically over at her brother, who looked just as pale and drawn as she felt. He slowly met her gaze, but when he saw the wild panic on her face, he snapped out of his own stupor and forced a kind smile at the small family in front of them. Sam finally felt herself breathing again, though her hands were shaking now. She had to get out of this house, she had to get out right now. Tentatively, she took a step backwards, towards the front door.

"Well," Dean said, "thanks for letting us come in for a little bit. It means a lot to us. My sister and I should really go now, though, we don't want to be a bother to you and your family." Jenny stood and nodded, staring at Sam in bewilderment.

Each breath came a little easier the closer she got to the front door, and once she was actually outside the house, she'd calmed down enough that her hands were still again. Where her near panic attack had subsided, however, was a cold dread that filled her stomach and made her feel more like a freak than ever. Jenny shut the door softly behind Dean as he stepped out behind his sister and cursed under his breath.

"You hear that, Dean? A figure on fire." Dean shook his head quickly and stalked away from the house, Sam struggling to keep up.

"And that woman, that was the woman in your dreams?" Sam bit her lip.

"Yeah, that was her. Did you hear what she was talking about? Scratching, flickering lights, both signs of a malevolent spirit!" Dean sighed as they moved down the walkway and took the two steps until they were standing on the sidewalk. He looked over at his sister from the corner of his eye before glaring across the street to his prized Impala.

"Yeah, well, I'm just freaked that your weirdo visions are coming true." Sam faltered in her steps for a moment before picking back up and catching up to her brother. Something like panic was spreading through her brain. Time to divert attention _away_ from Ms. Psychic Wonder, thank you.

"Forget about that for a minute," she said frantically, "the thing in the house, do you think it's the thing that killed Mom and… and Roger?" Sam wasn't sure whether or not that would make her happy. Dean didn't look too sure, either.

"I don't know!" he snapped, crossing the street to his car. Sam stepped almost in front of her brother and stopped, forcing him to halt his progress without running her down.

"Well, has it come back here, or has it been here the whole time?" What if it was in there, right now, staring out from those four walls, laughing at her? Sam looked back at the house nervously, wishing her brother had all the answers. He'd always had the answers for everything when they were younger. Even if they'd been the wrong ones, at least they were _answers_. And goddammit, this family was in their _home_ and something was coming after them. Sam was feeling completely overwhelmed and kind of like she was floundering around for things just out of reach, and it was making her uneasy. She hated feeling like this, it made her feel weak, and Winchesters weren't weak.

"Or maybe it's something else entirely, Sam. _We_ don't know yet!" Dean sounded frustrated. By all rights, he should be. He should be pissed off, and Sam shouldn't be getting frustrated with him for it, but fear is an illogical emotion, and often makes us jump around wildly with our emotions. Anger was often a secondary response for Sam and her brother. Something bad happened and they were scared or grief stricken? They let that pass and then they were _pissed_. But Sam really needed to focus on this job now, so why the hell was she getting so irritated?

"Those people are in _danger_, Dean! Some serious fucking danger, and we have to get 'em outta that house!" He sighed and shoved past her, hand already reaching out for the door handle.

"And we will, Sam." She turned to face him and glared. Did he not see how fucking serious this shit was, or was he intentionally _trying_ to piss her off?

"No, I mean now." Fed up, Dean whirled around, his own irritation and fear ebbing into his words.

"And how are you gonna do that, huh? You got a story that she's gonna believe?" Sam spluttered for a few moments. No, actually, she didn't have a story Jenny would believe. All she had was this sick feeling in her gut that this family was marked for death and that she'd fail someone again. Oh yeah, and these terrifyingly accurate visions that just popped out of nowhere that Sam had absolutely no _fucking_ idea how to handle or control. Not even mentioning the migraines they gave her when she woke up sweating and gasping for breath.

"Yeah, I didn't think as much, smart ass." Dean growled. Sam closed her mouth and intensified her glare. "Just… I need gas. Shut up and get in car."

She grumbled about it, but acquiesced in the end, sliding in next to her brother. He didn't say anything else until they got to the gas station in town, turning on the radio as loud as he could instead. Sam ignored the music for once, staring out the window, looking but not really seeing all the trees, houses, people, and buildings they drove by.

This time would be different. This time would be better. This time, no one would die.

Maybe if she said it enough times, Sam would start to believe it.

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><p><strong>Relatively short this chapter, but whatevs. I've been crunched for time doing stuffs lately, so y'all can deal.<strong>

**SUCK IT UP AND DEAL WITH IT LIKE DEAN!**

**Haha. Much love!**

**Peace.**


	4. Just Any Other Case

**Hello, my treasures!**

**I sincerely apologize for the extended delay. Bills went unpaid, and long story short, I have no internet at my house. It's hard for me to get places with free wi-fi right now, but I hope y'all will stick around for the story nonetheless! I promise to try and make it worth the wait!**

**sl: Thank you for the review, I loved it, and I won't expect them to come any faster than they have. I'm glad you see my Samantha as the type to dedicate her life to revenge, that's definitely one of her major flaws. I like to think she's very arrogant and is kind of a snob about being right because she went to college, and Dean didn't. Thanks for the advice on writing for Dean, I hadn't thought of that, but now that you've told me, I feel like I should have. **

**I'm flattered you say I'm not doing what a lot of others do and better than some of the authors you've seen, though I gotta say, I have no idea what 'it' is. **

**Yeah, Missouri always made me laugh really hard. I love her sass so much!**

**I'm not sure exactly what other episodes I'm planning to do with Girl!Sam, but I know for sure that I'll be doing more than just the first season, so you'll be able to get her mindset on a range of things they go through.**

**Thank you so, so, so, so much for the lovely review! I humbly await your next one, however far off it may be! Much love to you, sl!**

**As for the rest of you lot... you know the drill!**

**Please leave me your beautimous thoughts and takes on this chapter. I can't promise you when the next one will be up, but I CAN promise you that I'll get it up! The wait will just be a little bit longer than usual now.**

**I love you all!**

**MD**

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!**_

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><p>There was something to be said for letting one's brain relax and wander where it may. It was quite therapeutic, really. The lack of pressure for any kind of solution or answer as to what the hell was going on in Sam's life gave her a peace of mind she couldn't remember feeling for a very long time. She just sat next to her brother, forehead pressed into the dirty glass, slowly counting all the dark spots she could see clearly on the pane in front of her, and allowed her brain to aimlessly flit from one memory to the next thought and back again. Of course, one could argue that she was just running away from the problem of her visions and this spirit in their house and putting it off until she couldn't ignore her own thoughts any longer and was forced to confront her issues. But, then again, none of them would have had to deal with these painful, frightening visions, or try and keep another family from dying in the house that started their father's obsession with the paranormal, therefore '<em>one<em>' didn't understand that sometimes Sam's brain just needed to check out. So '_one_' could kindly shove their psycho-babble up their asses. 'Kay, thanks.

So, yeah. Wandering minds. Therapeutic… and shit.

In fact, it worked so well at calming down Sam's anger that by the time they finally (barely) spluttered into the gas station, her thoughts were making sense again. Everything was clear and concise, straight to the point, like she always tried to keep them on Hunts; none of that irritation making her unfairly blame her brother for trying to be the voice of reason or clouding her judgment. Just analytical thought and a strong sense of purpose. A quick glance at her brother's face as he stepped out of the car told Sam the short jaunt over to the mechanic's/gas station had much the same effect on Dean. Sure, he was still frowning, and those lines that only appeared on his face when he was really worried hadn't gone away, but the wild panic had left his eyes. His jaw was set in blind determination, not pain and fear.

Without a word, the two siblings exited the car. Dean was messing with the gas pump while Sam leaned against the Impala, her hands clasped together and tapping the black metal above her usual seat with nervous energy. Now that she was outside the safety and familiar comfort the car provided and she had to center her thoughts again, Sam found that all the tension she'd felt inside their old house was returning. Well… okay, not _all_ of the tension, but a big chunk of it. She could feel it settling in her shoulders, and tried to expel all that energy by lightly bouncing her hands off the car, but it wasn't really working all that great. Sam watched the cars on the street drive by with no real interest while her brother flipped down the license plate and pushed the nozzle into what could be argued as his longest committed relationship. He hadn't been kidding when he'd said they were almost out of gas. They'd been running on fumes when they'd pulled up to the pump.

"We just gotta chill out, that's all," Dean chirped. "You know, if this was any other kind of job, what would we do?" Sam wasn't surprised that her brother was picking up the conversation where they'd left off. It wasn't uncommon for them to butt heads on a case ("Didn't you hear that woman, Dean? It's so _obviously_ a werewolf!" "Well excuse _me_, I didn't realize you knew everything, you stubborn smart ass. If you were _listening,_ then you'd know this isn't a werewolf at all, but a black dog." "What? Are you _high_? Black dog, _really_ Dean?") and leave the conversation angry only to come back to it later as if no time had passed at all. Sam had found that this talent did not extend to their father. Neither of them could walk away from a conversation with him, period, it was considered a sign of disrespect, but if they ever _did_ (which they didn't) leave a discussion and try to come back to it later, it certainly would have been rather impossible to just pick it up from the same place.

Sam stopped her twitchy hands, flattening them against the cold metal and heaved a great sigh. She tried to shove out some of her anxiety through that breath, but she felt exactly the same. Maybe slightly more disheartened.

Absently, Sam scratched at the scars on the knuckles of her right hand and turned to her left to face her brother. She let her arms fall back to her side, wiggling her left hand just a little so her watch fell back in to its usual place (it was just the slightest bit too big for her slender wrists). Dean's hands were splayed across the dusty metal covering his arsenal of weapons, and his shoulders were hunched up by his ears. Although he'd just spoken to her, his eyes were trained on the back windshield, glazed over with the force of his thoughts.

"We'd try to figure out what we're dealing with," Sam conceded. "We'd… dig into the history of the house." Dean nodded and pushed himself off from the car and looked over to where his sister sat against the trunk next to him.

"Exactly. Except this time, we already _know_ what happened." Sam frowned. Her brother had only been four when that had happened, yeah? How perfect did he think his memory was?

"Yeah but… how much _do_ we know? I mean, how much do you actually remember?" Dean went quiet in thought, his hands deep in his pants pockets. He looked at Sam with a contemplative quirk in his mouth.

"About that night, you mean?" Sam nodded. He didn't need to elaborate. She knew exactly what night he was talking about. She tried to repress her anticipation behind a mask of nonchalance. She'd never heard much from her brother or father about the night her mom died. Just that she died, pinned to the ceiling, on fire, in Sam's nursery. And that had been carefully extracted from one of her father's drunken stupors. Dean was just this side of flat-out refusal whenever she'd tried to ask him about this.

Dean turned his face back to his car, lost in his memories for a moment. The jade green color of his eyes was shadowed by a deep and inescapable sadness he usually kept carefully shadowed underneath arrogance and smart ass jokes. Sam tried to tell herself that she had no reason to feel guilty, her brother would have wanted to be a part of this more than kept from hurting like this again. That she couldn't control her visions, and it wasn't her fault that this is where they led her. She'd never been all that great at lying to herself.

"Not much. I remember the fire. The heat," he muttered. He lapsed back into silence while Sam let her spirits fall. Well that didn't really help them much. Didn't help them out at all, actually. Sam was just about to move the conversation forward again, disappointed (though not entirely surprised) that he had no other information to offer when he spoke once again, his voice only just louder than the cars passing them by. "And then I carried you out the front door."

Sam shifted where she sat against the Impala, surprised. Well _that_ was something she'd never been told before. Of course, it wasn't pertinent to the case, but it had personal importance, so what the hell, right?

"You did?" Dean blinked once, twice, and then looked over at his sister from the corner of his eyes.

"Yeah. Why, you never knew that?" Sam's mouth pulled down at the corners as she stared at an oil spot on the ground. She shook her head slowly, flicking her eyes up to Dean's before continuing her examination of the stain that looked suspiciously like Madagascar.

"No," she muttered. Well, this could explain where Dean's deep-rooted sense of protection for Sam had begun. Or it could have been present before then and just turned into an extreme after their mom died. Sam had no idea. They never talked about Before That Night. As far as she knew, it had never existed.

Dean cleared his throat, drawing Sam's attention, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Yeah, well, I did. And you, uh… you know Dad's story as well as I do. Mom was…" his voice faltered and Sam's heart clenched painfully. Whether knowing what happened to her mom or at seeing her brother's obvious discomfort, she wasn't sure. "Mom was on the ceiling. And whatever had put her there was long gone by the time Dad found her."

Deciding to be the peacemaker, Sam directed the conversation to a more… manageable direction. Still not entirely comfortable for either of them, but when was their life ever _comfy_?

"And he _never_ had any theory about what did it?" Dean scratched the back of his head and turned around so he was facing the same direction as Sam and also sitting against the Impala. She'd probably finished filling up a while ago.

"If he did, he kept it to himself," Dean grumbled. "God knows we asked him enough times." Sam shook her head, thinking over their dad's antics and pathological tendency for secrecy. Things would have been so much damn _simpler_ if their dad had only opened up and shared shit with his kids. Too much to ask? Yes, actually. Winchesters don't talk about their feelings. Wonder who said that? Yup. One John Winchester. See how that shit worked out? Funny coincidence, right? Asshole.

"Okay," Sam breathed, "so if we're gonna figure out what's goin' on now… we have to figure out what happened back then, and see if it's the same thing." Oh God, what if it was? What would she even do with that information? Fucking rip the piece of shit apart, that's what she'd do. She'd make it scream until its throat was in shreds, make it bleed in the most painful ways, and get to know it from the inside out. Her anger, long since quieted down from the roiling demon she'd felt it to be at the beginning to a quiet, subtle hissing in the back of her mind, stirred. A flash of excitement and trepidation ran through her veins. She would Hunt this thing like she'd never Hunted before and wouldn't stop until she saw it die. Her right hand twitched in memory of the time she'd punched a harmless (sort of. She still had scars. The tree won.) trunk in anger and nearly broken the bones of a couple fingers. It would feel so much better if she could substitute tree bark for this supernatural motherfuck.

"Yeah," Dean grouched, startling Sam's morbid thoughts away, "we'll talk to Dad's friends, neighbors, people who were there at the time."

Sam tucked away her anger and bloodthirsty desire for revenge for later when she would(not) sleep. She needed to focus. Anger had no place in the presence of rational minds. But still… that was an easier thing to say she'd do when this case was so personal. There were so many things that would be harder for them both because this wasn't "just another case" for them. This wasn't just another house, in just another town of Bumfuck, America, with some nameless family in danger. This was _their_ hometown and _their_ old house, and this family had shown up to Sam, personally. She was important to this family and their survival, that had been obvious back in California with the appearance of her visions again. It was going to be a lot harder to detach themselves from this and do everything objectively. Emotion was going to blind their thoughts a lot more than usual. Fan-fucking-_tastic_.

"Does this feel like just another job to you?" Dean's lips twitched, but he didn't answer her question. That was okay. His silence was answer enough. Sam felt a little better that she wasn't the only one feeling so troubled, and then she was smothered in a sense of shame. What kind of sister feels grateful that her brother is in pain? The extremely fucked up ones, that's what kind.

"I'll be right back. I gotta go to the bathroom." her brother muttered. Before Sam could even nod, he was already walking away. She sighed, passing a hand over her face and set about finishing up the business with the Impala. She tapped the nozzle a couple times before pulling it out and replacing it back on the pump, and put the license plate back to rights. She pulled out her wallet, and current _fake_ credit card with a soft flutter of remorse. This wasn't her money, she'd done nothing to earn it. Someone, somewhere, would have to pay extra dollar out of their pocket because of the law she was breaking right now. And that was all she let herself feel on the matter before slapping it on the counter and ringing up their transaction. She would have paid with cash, because Dean always got bitchy when she used their cards for things like this, but he had it all, the greedy bastard. Thanking the cashier, Sam walked out and crawled into her spot while she waited for her brother. She didn't have to wait long.

He slid behind the wheel silently and just sat there, his hands in his lap. Sam eyed him curiously, patiently waiting for him to speak. He didn't. He just sat there, buried in his thoughts, for several long minutes before finally drawing in a shaky breath and turning on the Impala to pull away in complete silence. He didn't even turn on the radio station he'd been playing earlier. Sam asked no questions and he offered no explanation, and if she noticed that his eyes were a little wetter than normal well… she thought nothing of it. Must have been a trick of the light, because her brother never cried. Nope. Never. Dean Winchester was a self-proclaimed BAMF, and rule number one was "tears are for sissies," and Dean would never do something that would make him seem like a sissy.

What she _did_ know, though, was that those not-tears were her fault. Sam turned her head away and leaned her forehead against the cold pane of dirty glass. She began counting the flecks of grime she could clearly see and let her mind wander aimlessly away from the pit of shame gnawing at her stomach. Sometimes, Sam decided, she really kind of hated herself.

* * *

><p>Though Sam didn't really understand why, she found the smells of a mechanic's kind of… familiar. All that grease, oil, grime, dirt, sludge… everything. The smells that were so ingrained in the area that even if the building were gone, gasoline would still taint the air. It all made Sam remember happier moments spent with her father. That time when she'd been nine and her father had taken a day to himself to take the both of them fishing, or when a job had gone a lot faster than he'd anticipated, and he'd agreed to stay for a fair that just happened to overlap with Sam's seventh birthday. The first time her dad took her out in the Impala and praised her for her careful driving, or given her her first fake ID saying she was eighteen when it was really three years off. But for the life of her, Sam couldn't honestly connect the smell of cars with her dad. No, he'd always smelled more of gunpowder, alcohol, and gun oil than a car shop. Sure, Sam knew that her dad had been a mechanic Before That Night, but there'd never been anything to make that seem like a fact to her. And yet, walking into that shop had given her such a bad case of nostalgia, Dean had had to punch her shoulder to snap her out of it. Annoying older brother that he was, he'd punched her maybe just a little too hard.<p>

So they'd dug through their dad's journal, drawn up some names, cross-checked them with their friendly, neighborhood phonebook, and ended up at a mechanic's shop called Guenther's. This, actually, wasn't owned by a man named Guenther, much to Sam's amusement. The man's name was Walter and the man _he'd_ bought it from hadn't been a Guenther, either. Small town people, man… freaking hilarious.

After a very terse (Dean's fault) yet informative conversation, the two 'detectives' took their leave to go search out their trusty friend, Mr. Yellowpages. According to good-ol'-Walter, their dad had gone and talked to some psychic (neither of the siblings found this very amusing this time) just before skipping out of town. So, after a couple hours, a quick bite, and a short ride over to the payphone that housed their newest companion, Sam found herself flicking through the tissue-thin pages, skimming the different advertisements for every vocation imaginable. Seriously. Flea circus? Really? Morons.

"All right," Sam called out to her brother where he stood leaning lazily against the Impala, "so there are a few psychics and palm readers in town." _And none of them seem worth our time._ "There's someone named El Divino," _Divine my ass_. "There's uh…" Sam scoffed, and shook her head, "There's the Mysterious Mister Fortinsky." Sam flicked her eyes over to her brother. She made a face. He rolled his eyes. Right, so Mister Enigmatic's out then. "There's a woman called Missouri Moseley, some dude named –"

"Wait, Missouri _Moseley_?" Dean interrupted his sister. Sam's face scrunched into something between glaring in annoyance, pursing in frustration, and pouting. Dean frequently called it Sam's Bitchface. Whatever.

"What?" Sam queried, looking back at the small square headlining Missouri's talents. Comparatively, hers was the most humble, giving her home address, phone number, promising confidentiality to all clients (for a small token fee of course, Sam assumed), and her business hours.

Dean leaned forward a little bit, his eyes narrowing and his face caught somewhere between confusion and disbelief.

"That's a _psychic_?" Sam rolled her eyes. Her brother wasn't stupid, no matter what he tried to make you think, but honestly, sometimes the shit that came out his mouth should have gone through some sort of filter before passing through his mouth.

"No, dude, she's a fucking baker. Says here her banana cakes are famous." Dean's face soured at the heavy sarcasm in Sam's voice. She smiled internally. Her brother hated bananas.

"Don't be such a bitch."

"Jerk."

Shaking his head and muttering under his breath (calling Sam some Unmentionables, no doubt), Dean turned around and opened the door to the back bench seat, reaching towards the pile of clothes and their bags that were haphazardly strewn every which way.

"Dad's journal," he tossed over his shoulder as way of explanation. He straightened up, the brown leather book in his hands, and opening it up as he spoke. "C'mere, look at this. First page, first sentence. Read that." Dean opened to the aforementioned page as Sam left the phonebook open and stood in front of her brother. He thrust the small journal into her hands. Sam pursed her lips at his excessive force and narrowed her eyes at him in warning. He was pushing it. He just gestured impatiently to the page.

Sam conceded and read what had her brother in such a twist.

"'_I went to Missouri_," she muttered indifferently, but stood a little straighter and felt a great deal more interested when she read the last half, "_and I learned the truth.'_"

Ah. The truth. What goes bump in the night. The X-Files, and all that shit. So it was someone or someplace named Missouri where their dad had figured it all out. It was probably safe to assume, having just read the ad two minutes ago, that this Missouri Moseley was the one being mentioned in their dad's journal. And before their mother, too. Lucky her. Sam chewed her lip in thought. So it wasn't exactly this Missouri's fault that Sam's life had been down the crapper from day one (Sam still wasn't entirely convinced that those six months Before That Night really existed), but she'd certainly had a hand in the direction it'd gone. Hmm. Interesting.

Sam snapped the journal shut and tossed it through the open window onto the front bench. She released her lip as she looked up at her brother. He looked a little unsure still, but they both knew it was the only lead they had to go on.

"I always thought he meant the state." Sam nodded, chuckling lightly to herself.

"Well, brother of mine, let's go buy ourselves some banana cake! I hear it's on sale right now." Dean rolled his eyes, shoving past Sam to yank his door open. She quickly walked over to her side to settle in next to her brother with a shit-eating grin on her face. He obviously refused to look over at her, but that was fine. He knew it was there. Heh. Maybe next time he wouldn't punch her so hard for attention, yeah?

"You're such a brat, Samantha." Sam's grin just widened. There were definitely some downsides, but she had to admit, being the younger sibling was not without its perks.

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><p><strong>Alrighty! Sorry for any mistakes or choppiness in this chapter, I don't have the time to go through and read it over to fix the way it flows together and whatnot. I hope you all enjoy it, regardless!<strong>

**Please please PLEEEEEEASE leave me reviews! They help me write, so much!**

**Peace.**


	5. Missouri Tells the Truth

**Hello, loveys!**

**So. Found a good place with cheap (but tasty) tea and free wifi! And comfy couches. Lots of comfy couches. I came here two hours ago and BAM! Whipped this puppy out for you all! I made it kind of detailed heavy to make it extra long because I feel so bad about having to make y'all wait so long between posts. Personally, I am very happy with how this came out. Maybe not the ending, because my brain kind of died at the end, and I couldn't quite figure out how to bring the chapter to a close, but I think the rest more than makes up for it! I hope y'all agree with me. **

**As always, I shamelessly beg for your love and support in the form of reviews! I don't always see them right away now, and it's REALLY hard for me to respond, but rest assured that I *will* see them all. I maybe, possibly, sorta, kinda found out one of my neighbors has unprotected wifi, and I leech off of it (when it's strong enough) to check my email every now and then. I get all your lovely, amazing, splendiforous reviews there, and trust me, they all give me the warm-and-fuzzies! So please... send more my way! **

**Much love!**

**MD**

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_**

**P.S. Thanks for sticking with me, despite the unexpected lull in updates. This won't last forever!**

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><p>The drive over to Missouri's listed business address (which turned out to be in her house) was blessedly short, and, as an added bonus, Dean actually turned on some music this time. No more painfully awkward silence for them, thank <em>God<em>. Her brother turned on the radio and flipped through the channels until he found something playing an Alice in Chains song. It took Sam a moment, but she recognized it as "Rooster." Not her favorite, it was too soft for her tastes, but hey, Dean finally had _music_ on again, so screw her tastes. Hell, he even hummed a few bars. Bless the small favors.

Sam suspected it was because they were finally making headway and actually _getting_ somewhere on this case. 'Course, that meant dredging up more of their bloody past, but hey, she's wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially if said gift horse was pulling Dean out of his depressing funk. Yeah, she got it. This was personal, and it hurt. Fuck if she didn't _feel_ that it hurt, but there was only so many heavy sighs a girl could take before it all became too much. Sam was trying desperately to keep her own temper in check because her brother seemed incapable of such a task, and at least one of them had to be level headed on this case. It helped to think of her brother as a cornered animal (though she would vehemently deny this if ever asked); at first, he was going to lash out at anything he felt was a threat, but if she was patient, he'd calm his shit and see that his own freaking _sister_ wasn't the enemy here, and maybe he'd stop snapping at her. This, of course, was all assuming Sam _had_ enough patience in stock to keep herself from snapping when Dean got short. So, yeah, she was more than just a little relieved that her brother turned on some music. She took this as a sign of improvement. Huzzah.

Missouri's house was simple enough. Two stories, gray on the outside, a pale cream on the inside, and furniture that _almost_ matched. She had a sign in the window next to the front door that had the word 'open' scrawled in clear, neat letters. It was hidden from the road behind an overgrown rhododendron bush, but Sam pointed it out to her brother as soon as he was on the porch. He shrugged and opened the door after two solid knocks to let whomever it concerned know that they had guests.

The hardwood floors creaked softly under their combined weight, and years of training ingrained into her DNA made Sam take not of all the noisy spots to file away for possible use later. Her eyes automatically swept over the room, casing any potential threats. There was a small wooden desk with a porcelain tray for keys next to a stack of unopened mail off to the immediate right of the entrance. There was a small, square mirror hanging above the desk, about level with Sam's face. Missouri must be a woman, then. Made sense to Sam, though she had no idea why. Off to the left, and a little deeper inside the house, was what obviously was meant to be a waiting area. A small armchair sat against the far left wall, under a medium-sized painting of a lake, surrounded by forests and mountains. A dark wooden bench leaned back on a staircase of dark-stained wood that traveled into the lake-painting wall before stopping at a landing and turning to the right and continuing up to the second level. A rusty, old radiator was wedged in the space between the bench and the painting wall, seemingly out-of-place with the whole dark-brown-stained-wood-everywhere-and-cream-colored-walls Missouri had goin' on. A simple coffee table (one guess as to what it was made of) filled the foot space in front of the bench and arm chair, with a stack of miscellaneous magazines for guests to read. Some looked like that Vogue shit lots of women like to read, and some looked sketchier than the National Enquirer. There was a Sport Illustrated (swimsuit edition), and Sam may or may not have seen a worn, thick book underneath everything else.

Past the staircase, Sam could see a peek of a round dining room table with a (surprise!) wooden china cabinet, and light filtered into the room through windows that were out of sight. There was another open doorway on the wall to the right of the dining room, but there was a curtain of beads for privacy. Not that Sam could see much from her vantage point in front of the doorway. She surmised that this is where Missouri held her business. Opposite the beads, most of that wall was gone, leaving a big entrance into what Sam would guess was a family/living room area.

Her Hunter's instincts satisfied that there wasn't any danger, Sam moved towards the bench. She sat down a moment before her brother, opting for the seat the farthest away from the disturbing hunk of metal that might've been a radiator at some point. Dean fell into the spot next to her and looked over at the rusted iron anxiously, scooting away just the slightest bit. Okay, so maybe it was small form of payback for Dean dicking out on her right after they ditched the mechanic, or maybe him pissing her off in the street right after talking with Jenny. Or hell, maybe even as far back as breakfast when they'd stopped at a diner, and Dean had been impossible the _whole_ fucking time because a guy had looked at her a certain way. Long story short, Dean had been working her nerves in short order ever since they turned east, and no, she couldn't blame him, not really. That was her fault, she knew that. But dammit… he was pissing her off. So what if Sam had a small, tiny, teeny vindictive streak? At least she was fine admitting that she wasn't above her emotions. More than she could say for most sonsabitches on this planet.

Sam looked at her watch, effectively avoiding the dirty look Dean was tossing her way (she was fully expecting some form of retaliation later, because, yes, her brother really _was_ that petty), slightly shocked that it was only a little past three. Felt later than that to her. She clasped her hands, and slowly wrung them together as her brother picked up some random magazine and began flipping mindlessly through the material. He was turning the pages too fast to _actually_ be reading the damn thing, so it was all for show. Sam didn't even bother pretending. She couldn't be distracted by the who's-who of stardom these days what with all she had to think about.

The truth. Their dad wrote that Missouri had told him the truth. That could be any number of truths, now that she had the time to really consider it. She'd thought, at first, that the truth was about the things that the Winchesters Hunted. That Missouri had told their dad what _really_ went bump in the night. And she very well may have, Sam wasn't tossing that possibility out just yet. But, what if, hope against hope, it was _the_ truth? As in, _the_ truth John-fucking-Winchester, Hunter extraordinaire had spent the last 22 shitty years tracking down. Maybe this psychic had told him exactly what had killed their mom all those years ago (effectively cluing him in to 'the life' anyway, so Sam was pretty sure that was a result, regardless of if it was the _only_ result), and he'd been trying to _find_ it the whole time. Not find out what it was, like Sam had thought, but actually find the specific creature. That mean, though, that every time Sam or Dean had ever asked him if he knew what had burned their mom to a crisp, he'd been lying to their faces. For 22 fucking years. It also meant that they were about to find out (hopefully) what creature had started all this from a complete stranger instead of their father. This made Sam more sad than angry, surprisingly. Their dad had wrapped and buried himself in so many secrets that he couldn't be bothered to find the one that he shouldn't even be keeping from them when it really mattered, and now that job was falling to a person that Sam was about to meet for the first time in her life. This was his job, dammit, he should be the one spilling the beans and answering their questions. Not some fucking psychic in the middle of Kansas.

No, really. If he had been told what had done this to their family, he shoulda been upfront about it. Wasn't like he ever sugar-coated the truth about any _other_ nasties out there, and this was personal for all of them, so what the hell? This was their entire life, the ultimate Hunt. The bright red, blood-covered fucking cherry-of-all-Hunts, and NOW he wanted to protect their innocence? After he'd taken it from Sam, ripped it to shreds, stomped all over it, and then given any scraps left the salt-and-burn, NOW he wanted to protect something she didn't have anymore? Well. Fuck you, John Eric Winchester. Fuck you _very_ much.

No wonder the chickenshit had skipped out on them.

Sam ground her teeth together and took a slow, deep breath against the fiery swell of anger she felt inside. It wouldn't do to let her temper dictate how this conversation went. Her father wasn't even here, and he was _still_ pissing her off. Man was a fucking master.

A clock chimed from somewhere inside the house, and Dean tossed the magazine back on to the table with an irritated sigh. He leaned forward and planted his elbow on his knee and rested his chin in his hand, bouncing his free leg impatiently. Sam just kept wringing her hands slowly, staring out the window. Every cell in her body was singing with hope that this Missouri person had all the answers. She would finally be able to atone to Roger if this was all settled, and maybe, just _maybe_ she could put some of that oppressive guilt behind her and truly put her boyfriend to rest. She knew better, though. She wasn't the type to ever put her guilt behind her. She didn't get scars that eventually stopped hurting. No, she kept her demons with her, and they bled forever. Time made it easier for her to ignore, easier for her to put masks in place that were so perfect, they fooled even herself, but these wounds would never stop hurting. Case and point, there was a sharp throbbing in her chest that had been there as soon as Sam had started thinking about Roger. She liked to think this pain was coming from the spot he'd held inside that had felt empty ever since leaving Palo Alto; it made her almost want to smile. Almost.

Man… how fucking pathetic could she get? First she as thinking about her father and getting angry, and now she was thinking about Roger and feeling depressed. Sam mentally shook herself and let her hands relax. She'd just… zone out on the wood floor, stare at the different knots in the wood until Missouri came to see them. Yeah. That sounded like a plan.

Didn't take long. Within five minutes, Sam heard rustling behind her, farther inside the house, and two different people walking towards them.

"All right then," a woman's voice sounded, "don't you worry 'bout a thing. Your wife is crazy aboutcha." Sam whipped her head around to look up and see a tall, bald Hispanic man with a tan coat and glasses walking in front of a short, stout African-American woman with a small afro. Sam quickly pegged the woman as Missouri.

Her skin was the color of dark chocolate, and still young-age smooth, so she couldn't be older than 30. Her eyes were a dark brown, almost black, and her hair was short and frizzy, kept out of her face with a black, plastic headband. Her lips were full, and seemed to be in a perpetual pout. Her nose was a flatter than Sam's, and she had high cheek bones. She had on loose jeans, a colorful shirt, and a knitted brown jacket. She had small silver balls in her ears, and a thick rope of light green beads rolled together to accent her pastel pink-and-orange shirt. Her outfit was simple, and pretty nondescript. She certainly didn't _look_ like a psychic. She looked more like someone's aunt than someone's tarot dealer. Again, Sam felt this made sense somehow, though she wished she knew why.

The man thanked Missouri as she saw him out, and as soon as she shut the door, she locked it and flipped the sign in her window to say she was closed. She let out a noisy breath and shook her head sympathetically, turning to face Sam and Dean as they kept watchful, intelligent eyes trained on her every move. Their dad may have trusted her at some point, but that didn't mean _they_ did. A lot could happen to someone's personality in 22 years.

"Whew. Poor bastard," she drawled. "His woman's cold-bangin' the gardener." Sam raised her eyebrows at the older woman's statement. Did she just openly admit to lying to that man's face? She flicked her eyes over to her brother and he met her gaze, shrugging ever so slightly before looking back to Missouri.

"Why didn't you tell him?" Dean asked. Missouri walked back down the hallway, rolling her eyes.

"People don't come here for the truth." She turned and peered around the corner at Dean, leveling him with a meaningful stare. "They come for good news." Well, Sam couldn't argue with that. Seemed logical enough. Although, she _was_ here for the truth, so… if good news was all Missouri gave, then this was kinda, sorta, maybe a huge waste of time.

"Well, Sam, Dean, c'mon. I ain't got all day!" Missouri sassed, turning and walking back down the hall. Well. Shit, that came outta nowhere. And hold up, had she just used their names? They'd never seen her before, and hadn't introduced themselves. Shit, Sam hadn't even _said_ anything to her yet, and she already knew their names? Okay, so maybe she was a little more convinced that this lady was the real deal.

Sam heard the rustle of beads as she turned to look at her brother. His eyes were wide with surprise, his mouth opening and shutting a couple times. Sam raised her eyebrows at him, silently asking if they should really follow. Worst-case scenario, she was a nasty they had come across before in the past, or a demon, or something, and that's why she knew them already, and she was just waiting for them enter the house before attacking. Could explain the cover of psychic. Demons could read minds after all, wouldn't be bad cover. Of course the place didn't smell like rotten eggs, so there didn't seem to be a surplus of sulphur in the area, but still. It didn't hurt to live on the side of caution. Borderline paranoia is why they'd been able to Hunt for so many years and only walk away with scars and bad memories.

Dean clamped him mouth shut and furrowed his brow in thought. He stood up and motioned impatiently to Sam to follow. She was blocking his only way out and he couldn't trail after Missouri unless Sam let him or got up to move after the psychic first. Sam smirked to herself. Dean hated it when they were in some foreign area and Sam was in front. If only to annoy him, she had to make sure she entered the room first. Dean was great and all, and Sam loved him, she really did, but c'mon now. She was a big girl, and obviously independent enough to handle their line of work without his protectiveness suffocating her. There was a difference between having her back and keeping her in a bubble.

Sam stood and quickly pranced off to the beaded curtain. She could almost _feel_ the frown on her brother's face, and filed away that piece of information for later. She used her hand to part the curtain enough to walk through, making sure to hold them apart for Dean until he could do it himself. Missouri stood in the middle of a cozy sitting room. The same cream color was on the walls, and the same dark hardwood was wall-to-wall, but there was a large carpet with intricate patterns that looked suspiciously like vines surrounding a giant lotus flower. The flower and swirling vines around it were done in white thread, and the rest of the carpet was a dark purple color that Sam liked very much. There were a couple bookshelves on the wall to right, and on the other side of the room, a big bay window fed light into the room through a sheet curtain. A small side table held a potted aloe vera plant. On the left wall sat a white loveseat couch, and a couple of chairs were opposite the furniture, facing the coffee table that sat in between. All of this seating sat on the carpet.

Missouri had one hand on the closest chair, and the other fisted on her hip. She had a warm smile on her face as she flicked her gaze between Sam and Dean and back again. She hummed contentedly as Dean let go of the wooden beads and relaxed his hands limply at his sides. Sam had her hands in the pockets of her pants, nervously rubbing a quarter she felt in her right hand.

"Well," Missouri breathed, "lemme look atchya." Her smile grew, showing perfectly straight white teeth as a wry laugh passed her lips. "Oh, you two grew up so well. Look at you kids! You certainly both got your father's handsome genes, Dean. And Sam, oh sweetie, you look so much like your mother. You grew up pretty, girl, real pretty." Sam felt her cheeks heat up just a little and ducked her head behind her blunt bangs. She always got this weird floppy, uncomfortable feeling when people told her she looked pretty or whatever. Seriously, Sam was like… the least feminine person around, she did nothing with her hair, never wore makeup, didn't do that acne-prevention-soapy-facial-wash shit, and had scars all over (some visible, some not). People were obviously making fun of her when they called her attractive, because there was no possible way they could be serious. She was decent enough, but _pretty_? Pfft. Sam was well aware of how her brother looked, however. He certainly had gotten the better end of the gene pool. Any scars _he_ had only added to the whole mysterious thing he had goin' on, and Sam knew why her brother was always getting the barflies hanging off him whenever they went out for a beer. He was hot. Plain and simple. Just because he was her brother didn't mean Sam couldn't recognize how attractive and appealing he looked to women. He was a sonnuvabitch sometimes, yeah. But a handsome sonnuvabitch, and that made all the difference.

Missouri's eyes twinkled mischievously as she focused in on Dean. She raised her hand off her hip and wagged one finger at him.

"And you were one goofy-lookin' kid, too." She bubbled up with laughter again, shaking her head at some fond memory, and Sam couldn't help it when she felt a small smile on her own face. The energy radiating off the woman was too powerful to ignore. She was comfortable, warm, happy, and she made Sam more relaxed than she was usually willing to let herself feel around strangers. She grinned over at her brother, whose eyes were swimming with confusion and a little annoyance. Seemed he was a little offended by the statement. Missouri was the professional psychic in the room, though, so who was Sam to argue, right? Right.

"Sam," the psychic cooed. Missouri's sparkling eyes turned to level at Sam. No wonder their dad had trusted this woman. She made you feel so comfortable that you couldn't help feeling open enough to confide in her. Missouri stretched out her hand and Sam let go of the quarter to place her hand in the older woman's. Her skin was surprisingly soft, and her hand colder than Sam could have expected them to be. Missouri placed her other hand on top of Sam's. Suddenly, Sam didn't mind so much that their father was off-the-grid, and had left the job of dumping the steaming pile of monster-of-the-century on them. She considered, for a moment, that Roger would have really liked this woman. Ya know, if he wasn't a pile of charred bones and all.

"Oh, honey," Missouri's smile fell off her face, and she ran her thumbs in soothing circles along the back of Sam's hand. Sam's own half-smile turned slightly confused at the abrupt change in the older woman's demeanor. "I'm sorry about your boyfriend." Sam blinked, stunned, and her smile died. She felt Dean stiffen next to her. "And your father," Missouri pulled her eyebrows together in concern, looking between the two siblings, "he's missin'?"

Gently, so as not to be rude, Sam extricated her hand from Missouri's grasp and shoved it deep inside her pocket once more, picking up her habit of nervously rubbing the small coin. She decidedly less comfortable, and a lot more confused. First their names, then… then Roger, and now their father? Uhm… kindly excuse her for a second while Sam has a panicky moment of _whatthefuckjusthappened_.

"How'd you know all that?" Sam croaked. Missouri gestured aimlessly with her hands.

"Well… you were just thinkin' it, just now." Sam raised her eyebrows. Okay, seriously, did it ever end with this woman?

"Well where is he? Is he okay?" Ah, so her brother _can_ still speak. Good to know. Though if it had been her, she wouldn't have wasted it asking after that asshole.

"I don't know," Missouri admittedly sadly. Dean seemed to shake off his initial shock and confusion at that because he frowned in disapproval.

"Don't know?" he asked disbelievingly. "You… you're supposed to be a psychic, right?" Missouri pulled her eyebrows together and glared at Dean reproachfully. Sam rubbed the metal in her hand and watched the interaction with interest. Dean was digging himself a hole here. Not a good first impression, hotshot.

"Boy, you see me sawin' some bony tramp in half? You think I'm a magician? I may be able to read thoughts and sense energies in a room, but I can't pull facts outta thin air." Sam looked up at her brother, barely able to bite back the smirk. Dean kind of spluttered for a second, his words floundering before they even left his mouth. He looked at his sister, silently begging for help, but Sam just shook with the giggles she was trying to hold in. Missouri huffed and motioned to the couch with her right hand, her glare softening. "Sit. Please."

Sam didn't even bother hiding the smirk when her brother looked over at her again. She just chuckled under her breath and moved over to the couch, sitting closest to the window. Dean followed, filling the space next to her. It was kind of nice for Dean to be the one getting picked on by a stranger this time. Sam had a habit of talking herself in circles with strangers, and her geeky habit of knowing useless facts seemed to repeatedly make her seem awkward and like an easy target. Which Dean didn't exploit at all to make Sam seem like a total dweeb, therefore making him look even more awesome than he felt. Nope. Not at all.

Dean had barely sat on the couch for two seconds before Missouri, sitting in one of the chairs across from them, shot him a warning glare and jabbed a finer in the air at him.

"Boy, you put your foot on my coffee table, I'ma whack you wit' a spoon!" Dean froze, reminding Sam of a deer caught in the headlights, right before it's run over and left for dead.

"I didn't do anything!" he squeaked defensively. Missouri rested her hand in her lap and narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"But you were thinkin' about it." Dean's mouth fell open a little bit, and he turned to face Sam, his eyes asking her if this was really happening to him. Sam grinned at her brother, waggling her eyebrows. He was a man's man, right? He could hold his own against one little psychic, yeah? Sam allowed herself a few more seconds of mirth before she wiped the smile off her face and physically shook her head back into the game. Enough poking fun, they'd come here for a reason.

"Okay. So," Sam started, "our dad – when did you first meet him?" Missouri looked out the window in thought for a moment before nodding and answering Sam's question.

"He came for a reading. A few days after the fire." Sam was proud of herself. She didn't normally picture black hair, dead eyes and burning skin when she heard that word anymore. Well… on a good day, that is. "I just told him what was really out there in the dark. I guess you could say… I drew back the curtains for him."

Sam nodded. She'd pretty much already known that. Dean shifted a little next to her.

"What about the fire? Do – Do you know what killed our mom?" Dean's voice was a little muted, as if he didn't really want to know the answer. But that was stupid, because he wanted this thing dead just as much as Sam did. Well… okay, she doubted there was anyone anywhere that could want anything dead quite _that_ much, but still.

"A little." Missouri admitted. Sam shifted to the edge of her seat, hanging on to every word. "Your daddy took me to your house. He was hopin' I could sense the – the echoes, the fingerprints of this thing."

Sam waited a moment, but it looked like Missouri wasn't going to give up any more without being prompted.

"Did you?" she asked. Missouri looked out the window again, her eyes dark with sadness.

"I…" her voice trailed off and she closed her eyes as she shook her head. Sam held back her sigh of disappointment.

"What was it?" Sam felt a little bad for pressing on a subject the woman was obviously so reluctant to talk about, but honestly, they had to know everything she did. Sam had been kept in the dark long enough, thank you very damn much (John-fucking-Winchester), and she'd had quite enough of it.

"I don't know," Missouri admitted softly. She shook her head again, pulling her eyes away from the window and looking Sam dead on. She felt a small chill go down her spine. "Oh, but it was _evil_." Sam bit her lip and looked over at her brother. He was staring at Missouri as if he could pull the answers out of her with his eyes alone. Sometimes it worked, all Dean had to do was give a woman a certain look, and she spilled everything. Somehow, Sam doubted that would work this time.

"So… you two think something's back in that house." Sam could tell this was meant to be a question, but she heard it as more of a statement. Made sense if Missouri was really reading her mind. And wasn't that just a pleasant thought? Sam didn't even have her own thoughts to herself. Well, shit.

"Definitely," Sam said firmly. Dean nodded gravely and some small flicker of hope seemed to die out in the woman's face. Sam felt bad for being the bearer of bad news. She really hated giving people bad news.

"I don't understand," Missouri mumbled. Sam furrowed her brow.

"What?"

"I haven't been back inside, but I've been keepin' an eye on the place, and it's been quiet. No sudden deaths, not freak accidents…" Missouri shook her head and looked down at her hands. "Why is it acting up _now_?"

Sam bit her lip and rubbed the scars on her knuckles mindlessly. The small action caught Dean's eyes, and he frowned ever so slightly, barely a pull down at the corners of his lips, but he said nothing. Sam paid him no mind.

"I don't know. But Dad going missing, and Rog… Roger dying, and now this house happening all at once… it feels like something's just starting." Missouri pulled her eyebrows together in thought while Dean slumped back into the corner of the couch. He pinched the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. She couldn't blame him. If she wasn't medicated, she'd probably be battling a nasty one herself.

"That's a comforting thought," he growled. Sam had nothing to say to that obvious sarcasm, and Missouri offered no consolations either. The trio just sat there, comfortable in her sitting room, shivering at the thought of what it could mean for Jenny and her children that something was back in Lawrence. Sam's mind trailed to the vision of Roger sprawled at unnatural angles, bleeding out of his stomach just before he caught fire and his skin flaked away from his muscle in pieces of ash. She substituted Roger for the small blonde mother they'd met earlier today and almost heaved her stomach onto the lotus carpet. She felt sick with that picture, and irrationally and blindly angry.

She was going to kill whatever piece of shit was making this happen. Every bone in her body was sure of that. She was kill this monster… or die trying.

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><p><strong>So, ending on that morbid thought from Sam, what do you all think? I've noticed that Sam's anger kind of gives him a one-track mind which makes him blind to caution sometimes, and Dean has to kind of temper that out of him, so I tried to bring that over. Obviously, Dean isn't just going to <em>let<em> his sister die fighting this monster, but she's kind of got that whole 'I will kill this or die in the process' mindset because her anger is making her reckless. /shrug**

**Please, please, please leave me reviews. Seriously. No really. I see them, even if I'm not posting, and they make me want to write more! It gives me something to do, which is awesome, because I'm running out of books to read, and there's shit on TV these days. So yeah.**

**REVIEWS OR DEATH.**

**Also, no time to read over for errors and flow issues, again, so, sorry about that. Next time, I promise!**

**Peace.**


	6. Sam's Night Out

**Hello, lovelies!**

**So this chapter I did from scratch. I'm actually really proud of it. It's a filler chapter, because I figure we should get a little peek into what's going on in this episode outside of what they showed us on TV. I'm happy with how everything turned out, though, I haven't had time to read through it, so please pardon any mistakes. If anything really bothers you, just let me know, and I'll change it as soon as I can. **

**Again, I shamelessly beg for you to leave me a review! I can still see them, even if I don't respond, and they motivate me to write! Ya know, besides giving me the warm and fuzzies inside.**

**Next chapter, Missouri figures out what's inside their house! Dun-dun-DUN (even though no one should be surprised because that episode aired years ago, so we all know what's inside their house already. DOESN'T MAKE IT ANY LESS EXCITING TO WRITE!)**

**Thanks for the love, and please leave me more!**

**Yours,**

**MD**

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_**

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><p>Despite much protesting from the Winchester siblings, Missouri simply refused to go back to their house the same day. She claimed that she didn't want to concern Jenny that something was wrong (even though there was), and that she was busy anyway, but Sam suspected differently. She couldn't prove it, but she had a sneaking suspicion that Missouri was giving them the time to rest and regroup before they took her to face whatever evil was permeating those walls. And it was a sweet gesture, but the anticipation was nearly driving her insane; her brain was over-thinking, as it was wont to do when at rest, and she felt a growing sense of paranoia for the following day. So, sure, the gesture as nice, and yeah, she could probably do with some down time (she hadn't slept in over a day), but she'd much rather get this all over with. If she was going to be severely depressed by what the psychic woman told her, she'd rather just dive right in and face it head-on. <em>Knowing<em> that she was waiting for horrible news was, quite possibly, worse than cleaning a werewolf bite with holy water. And believe her, that was BAD. Like… traumatized-for-life kind of bad.

Still, there wasn't much they could do to _force_ Missouri out of her home, so after agreeing that they'd pick her up the next day in the early morning, they left to (finally) go find themselves a motel room. Keeping in mind, of course, that Sam meant room in the loosest possible term. She wasn't entirely sure, but the yellowed, peeling used-to-be-some-form-of-blue wallpaper might have actually been worse than California. The bathroom was _definitely_ worse. The tile on the wall was almost completely gone, and the sink looked like there were some stains of unmentionable fluids that weren't ever coming out again. The mirror had a permanent layer of grime, and the light bulb flickered the pathetic light so much, Sam suspected that it was dangerously close to dying. Not that _she _cared, because she always took her showers in the dark, and if she left the door open, there was enough light from their room to see herself when she brushed her teeth, so really, that was something that would bug Dean. The shower had hot water for all of two minutes before it turned frigid, so Dean, of course, stole it all as soon as they walked through the door. He even stole some of the cold water too. Dick.

The mattresses were lumpy, and if Sam wanted any sleep that night, she was going to have to lie at some pretty interesting angles to avoid that spring that dug right into her hip, but they would serve their purpose. She'd just have to take a shower in acid to burn off the germs when they left, is all. The carpet had been tread over so many times, that hundreds of different pairs of feet had worn holes in several spots. There was a stale, tangy smell in the air, like sweat and old socks, but Sam couldn't tell where it was coming from. Everywhere, maybe? Hey, at least she didn't see any bugs yet. She'd take her perks where she could get them.

They didn't spend much time in that room when they got settled in. Just enough for Dean to shower, set the salt lines and other protective elements strategically around the room, hide a few weapons at key spots in the room, and then they were off again. Much as Sam wanted to cruise around and look at the town she'd been born in, Dean had other ideas. Mainly, alcoholic, greasy ideas. In a (fortunate) moment of insight, Sam grabbed her laptop and shoved it in her book bag. She wasn't expecting to get drunk, and she wasn't feeling hungry, so she'd hide behind her computer screen and research stuff. Mostly try and figure out what had killed Roger, like she'd been doing in between jobs for the last six months. She hadn't turned up any concrete hints yet. But she was stubborn, so she wouldn't give up.

The bar her brother chose was pretty nice, considering the usual places they frequented. It was still musty, filled with cigarette smoke, too many drunks, sweat, and rickety tables, but the booths looked refurbished. Not to mention the pool table was in pristine condition. And hey! Look at that! A classic jukebox. Sam mentally praised her brother's choice in divvy bars and promptly slipped into the closest open booth where she could face the door. She didn't bother looking to see if Dean would be joining her, he'd already sidled up to the bar and was flirting his way towards four shots of whiskey. How he hadn't keeled over yet from his massive alcohol consumption, Sam had no idea, but she was waiting with bated breath. Because he would, one day. She knew it. It had to happen at _some_ point, the way her brother guzzled all that shit like it was the only thing keeping him alive. She gave him another six months.

Pulling her computer out of sleep mode, she found out that no, the bar did not have free internet, but some place close by did. And, lucky for her, they hadn't put a password on it. Without waiting too long, she had Google open and was going through her customary resources for information while simultaneously looking for new ones. The buzz of conversation faded to background noise, and before she knew it, she'd spent twenty minutes finding absolutely bupkis. Frustrated, she flicked her eyes around the room, scouting out any possible changes in her surroundings. Nothing had really changed, except that the pool table was now open and Dean had switched his attention from the brunette behind the bar to the blonde practically sitting in his lap. She giggled way too loud for it to be honest, and Dean's easy grin slipped over his lips. Sam rolled her eyes, and turned back to her just-as-annoying computer screen. Sure, he looked all caught up in this floozy bar tramp, but he'd been trained better than that, she Sam could tell by the set of his shoulders that he was keeping at least half his attention on the rest of the bar.

Sam rubbed at her only slightly throbbing temple with her right hand, shutting her eyes for a moment. She wasn't one to drink, she was a lightweight, and she didn't like how easily the alcohol made her brain fuzzy, but she was seriously reconsidering this choice of hers. If nothing else, it might actually help her relax. Her search through the internet had led her to a website database thingy of supernatural occurrences and monsters that didn't look too totally fake, but there was still plenty they'd gotten wrong. And not a shred of anything on what she was looking for. Honestly, she didn't expect her answer to pop up on this page of all places, but where the hell else did she have to look?

"This seat taken?" It took a moment for Sam's brain to register that that male voice she'd hear had been talking to _her_, and when it did, she looked up. There was a man with shaggy blonde hair, lighter than Dean's by several shades, and brown eyes grinning down at her with an open beer bottle in his hands. He had high cheekbones, a straight (if a little small) nose, a thin upper lip, and a defined jawline, but he didn't look half bad, in Sam's opinion. Not really her type, but attractive enough. For someone else. Still, Sam gave him a small, polite smile and nodded.

"Yeah, sorry, I'm waiting for someone to meet up with me here." Sam shrugged a little, as if to say, 'What can ya do' and turned back to her computer. Blondie, however, didn't pick up on the subtle dismissal and slid into the seat across from her anyway. Right. Well… that was troublesome.

"Ah, that's a shame. Prettiest girl in the whole bar's sittin' here all alone, and she's already spoken for." There was a slight twang to his voice, Sam noted, but it didn't sound like he was native to Kansas. It was a little smoother and richer than that; he rolled her r's just the slightest bit in a way that had her guessing he'd been raised somewhere in Oklahoma. Sam frowned at her unwanted companion. She'd already told him (not in so many words, of course) that she didn't want his company, and not only did he not listen, he was trying to charm her with compliments? HA. Okay, one, if he was going to compliment her, he needed to try something that Sam actually _believed_, because, as she'd said before, people were obviously making fun of her if they called her pretty. She wasn't. Wasn't ugly, she knew that, but she certainly wasn't beautiful. And, two, he should only be turning on the charm if she'd invited his company. Which she had not.

"Yeah, I am, and he'll be here any moment, so I'd appreciate it if you would leave his spot open." Blondie half-grinned and took a swig of his beer, considering her for a moment.

"Ya know, I've been watchin' you fer awhile," Sam shuddered, "and I haven't seen no one even hardly look at you. You been here all alone on yer laptop fer nearly 25 minutes now. I think you been stood-up, darlin'." Sam barely refrained from rolling her eyes. She felt her skin crawl, like she had spiders under her skin. She felt slimy and gross just by him looking at her. There was something in his eyes that was way too predatory for her comfort level, and he was pushing his company on her. She wished she could just sink into the seat and hide. She hated it when guys tried to force themselves around her. It had always made her feel cheap and like one of those tacky women her brother constantly picked up. Even more so after Roger had died. Didn't matter so much if she gave them attention back (which she didn't), she still felt like she was somehow tainting her memory of him by being around single men.

Sam found that she wasn't really inclined for relationships these days. Besides the glaringly obvious fact that it was stupid to hit it off with someone when she'd only be leaving soon after, she just… didn't. Couldn't. She didn't have anything left she felt comfortable giving over to a guy, it had all burned away back in Palo Alto. She just couldn't treat people like object for her sexual gratification like her brother could. Intellectually, she saw how beneficial getting laid was. All those endorphins and happy hormones would help her relax and chill out, and Sam supposed that a good chunk of the strain she lived under would dissipate, but no. Just no. She couldn't _do_ one-night stands. She'd much rather have such intimacy with someone she could _connect_ to and enjoy being around for something other than sex. Just screwing around with someone for the hell of it made Sam feel dirty and empty, like she'd just used something precious without asking. And now, after Roger had been ripped from her soul and left a gaping, bleeding hole behind, she couldn't see… she didn't want… she just… how… just… no. _No_.

"Well, I'll be just fine on my own, thanks. He'll show." Sam turned her attention back to her computer, refusing to acknowledge the widening grin across the table from her. She had much better things to do with her time than argue with some dick-for-brains jackass that couldn't take a hint.

"I could keep ya company. Just until he shows up, if ya want." Sam said nothing, opting to type 'unexplained fire death' into the search bar at the top of the website. Zero results, in case you were wondering. And, no, she _didn't_ want, but she wasn't even going to bother telling him that.

"He _has_, jackass." Sam let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding and smiled gratefully up at her brother. He was looming above their table, arms crossed, glaring over at Blondie, green eyes dark with anger. His fingers were tapping rapidly on his arms. He probably just wanted to yank Blondie out of the booth. This was one time Sam would have no problem with his pathological protectiveness. Blondie's grin disappeared and he narrowed his eyes, opening his mouth to snap at Dean, but then he looked up and actually _saw_ her brother. He snapped his mouth shut and gulped, chuckling nervously. Sam coughed to cover up her derisive snort. Yeah, Dean was pretty intimidating when he was pissed. And someone making his sister uncomfortable was a quick way to piss him off. A lot.

"Right. Well… uhm… bye, then." Sam watched, amused, as the man slid out of the booth and slipped back into the crowd. Shaking her head with a soft chuckle, she turned back to her brother. He hadn't completely lost the glare, but it had definitely softened, and it wasn't angry now so much as stern. Ah great, he was gonna go and spoil his brownie points by trying to chide her for some prick not listening to her.

"Sam, you wouldn't _have_ this problem if you just grew a bar and told them to piss off." Sam rolled her eyes, facing her computer again. Yep, definitely ruined his moment of gratitude.

"I was fine, Dean." So what if that wasn't entirely true? She didn't want her brother actually _thinking_ she needed his help with anything, whether that was the case or not. Dean huffed impatiently and rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, which is why you were cowering like a frightened puppy and letting that douchebag undress you with his eyes." Sam glared at her screen, angrily mashing the keys at her fingertips.

"Screw you, I do not _cower_. If it was such a fucking chore to do all that, maybe you should just go back to your own blonde companion and leave me alone. I'm busy." Sam snapped. She had so much more composure than this, how did her brother get under her skin and annoy her so damn easily? It was kind of pissing her off.

"I had to leave her because I had to rescue your ass. Seriously, Sammy, you owe me. I was two minutes away from scoring her number." He flashed a downright dirty smirk and licked his lips appreciatively. "Her name was Candy."

Sam didn't say anything. Dean gave her a couple second before sitting on the edge of the seat across from her. She owed him nothing, it was _his_ own choice to come over here and leave his 'date.'

"Oh, lighten up, Sammy." Sam glared at him over the top of her computer before looking back at the page on angry spirits. As if she didn't know everything about them already.

"It's _Sam_." Dean frowned. She didn't usually correct him anymore when he called her Sammy. She'd gotten too used to it, and it's not like he ever listened. Hell, he called her that stupid nickname _more_ when she asked him not to, if only to annoy her. And besides, it was a (weird, stupid, childish, awkward) show of affection, and it was kind of special, because he was really the only one that called her that. Their dad tried to slip it in there every now and then, but it was kind of hard to call her that when Sam refused to answer to it if he used it, so he didn't.

"Seriously, Sam, you've been hunched over that thing, and look progressively more and more pissy, which I didn't even think was possible. Have a beer, relax." Sam rolled her shoulder. He was right. She was getting nowhere fast, and maybe she could swindle some money at the pool table. Sam didn't like hustling, she wished they could make money in a more honest way, but they were running low on cash, and their cards would run out any day now, so they didn't have the option to be picky. She bit her lip, weighing the benefits of spending just a _little_ more time digging around against adding to their swiftly-dwindling funds.

"Sam, so help me God…" Dean left his threat open-ended, but she got the idea. Heaving a very put-upon sigh, she closed her computer and put it back in its usual spot in her book bag. Dean nodded approvingly and stood up, waiting for Sam to finish packing her things away. When she stood up, she stretched her back and popped her neck, groaning in both pain and pleasure. Muscles she didn't even know were in her back were sore. Exactly how long had she been in that booth again?

"Good. Now go do… something." Sam shook her head, but smiled nonetheless at her brother's puny order. Her eyes traveled over to the pool table, and she eyed the few guys lingering in the area. Usuals probably looking for some fresh meat. None of them looked too intimidating. One was loud and cocky, swaggering around his friend, another was shifty and couldn't keep still for very long, and the last one had taken Sam a moment to even notice was there. His presence seemed muted, like he was trying to keep attention away from himself. Sam slung her bag over her shoulder and gestured over to the table aimlessly with her hand, looking at her brother from the corner of her eye.

"You wanna…?" Dean followed her eyes and took in the competition for a moment before smiling mischievously down at his sister.

"You gonna take 'em, or you gonna help set me up?" Sam mulled her options over. It was definitely more fun to be the one to clean them out, that was for sure, but maybe she _had_ been a little harsh on her brother. Yeah, he'd blamed her for him dismissing his company (totally _not_ her fault) and talked to her as if she didn't know how to handle herself and had practically begged him to come to her rescue, but still. She could have thanked him for his help instead of snapping at him after driving away that creep, even if Dean was being obnoxious.

"Gimme me a minute before you come over to play," and yeah, maybe the happy twinkle in his eye was totally worth not having all the fun tonight, but hey, who was asking? "But Dean, don't overdo it this time. I don't wanna get chased out this time." Dean waved his hand dismissively as Sam started to shuffle her way through the crammed bar.

"That was _not _my fault! Don't worry, it'll be easy as pie!" Sam bit back her grin and sidled up the pool table. She dropped her bag under the wooden table and picked up a cue stick. The men she'd scouted out perked up in interest as Sam gathered up the stripes and solids and racked them all up to her liking. The plan was that she would poke around, showing that she wasn't that great of a player, and her brother would challenge her to a game. She would lose, and the game would tell everyone that Dean was good, but not great, and overconfident in his skills. Then all that was left was drawing in the money. Hopefully, without letting on that they were being hustled. Sam wasn't too worried about these guys having noticed her talking with Dean and being suspicious the pair, her booth had been practically right next to the front door and in the corner, away from prying eyes. Well… most prying eyes. Blondie, apparently, hadn't gotten the memo.

Sam drew back her arm, and jabbed at the cue ball, purposely missing the first time. She got it on the second, and hit it to look like she'd been trying to put power behind it and failed. She bit her lip, scrunching her brow in concentration and walked around the pool to take her next shot. She went for a corner pocket shot that _should_ have been easy enough to do in her sleep, but alas, today was just not Samantha Winchester's day.

"Hey, you mind if I play?" Sam straightened from where she'd been lining up another shot she'd planned to just barely make, and looked over at her brother. He had a cue stick in his hands, and the other hand in his pocket. Sam kept any recognition out of her face, giving him the once-over in a show of sizing up her competition. Sam crossed her arm and tapped her foot, looking like she was giving his offer consideration when she was actually thinking about this local bookstore they'd passed on the way over here, hoping they might some good additions she could purchase after they left here.

Sam shrugged nonchalantly, all three men she'd scouted as the usuals eyeing the pair with interest.

"Sure, as long as I get to break." Dean smirked and nodded, moving to gather the balls to rack up again. Sam settled in to her role, ready to get this over with so she could go watch by the jukebox and switch from the country shit that was playing to some actual _music_ while her brother cleaned out the house.

Oh, yes. Easy as pie indeed.

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><p><strong>Hahaha. Those suckers are gonna get ripped off, and they won't have any idea what hit them. <strong>

**Thoughts? Likes? Dislikes? How did I do with Sam and Dean totally from scratch? Please let me know!**

**Until next time, my beauties!**

**Peace.**


	7. Of Pranks and Prayers

**Hello, chickadees!**

**Praise be for public libraries, yeah? MWAHAHA! Take that, internet-deprived house! You can SUCK IT!**

**Right. Now that that's out of my system, I wrote this out last night, and I figured I'd follow the 'rents out to the library and poast since I've been making y'all wait lately. Though, I must say, I made a liar out of myself. I was wrong last chapter, and no, Missouri hasn't told the Winchesters that there's a poltergeist in their old home. Instead, I went for a bit of humor. Personally, I think this chapter is hilarious, and I had to stop writing it periodically because I was giggling too much. I hope y'all feel the same!**

**If ya do, you should tell me in a review. If ya don't... well... you should still tell me by reviewing.**

**Much love to you all for reading this!**

**Yours,**

**MD**

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!**_

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><p>The stint at the bar had ended very well for the siblings. The cocky bastard had been the first one to take on their brother, and he'd been the quickest to lose it all, which hadn't surprised Sam in the least. Mr. Twitchy McTwicherton had taken a little more work from her brother, but that was only because he kept getting distracted and took forever to make a shot. The last guy, all introverted quietness that he was, had actually been a challenge for her brother. He was a good player, a <em>really<em> good player, and Dean had had to still play at the same skill level so that he didn't let on that everyone had been played while winning the game anyway. Sam hadn't known who to be more impressed with: her brother for pulling it off, or the guy for almost beating Dean out of the $450 he'd made up to that point. Contestant number one had just cashed his paycheck, and apparently hadn't known when to stop betting. Too bad for him, but at least Sam could buy herself a book now.

When all was said and done, they'd left, buzzing with happiness at their new income and a night well-spent. The drive back to their motel room had been so short, they hadn't even made it through the commercial break on the radio station, much to her brother's chagrin. Once they'd stepped inside, Dean went about checking the salt lines to fix any mistakes, and Sam set her computer up on her bed. She'd forgotten to take the charger with her to the bar, and her battery was almost dead, so while she let it charge, she hopped into the bathroom and took a shower. Fucking cheapskate crappy motel had held out on the water heater, and even though they'd been gone for a few hours, there _still_ wasn't any hot water. That was okay, though. Sam would get Dean back. She'd wait until he was asleep, but she'd get him back. Wasn't like she was going to get much sleep herself, despite being up for over 36 hours, so she could be patient and wait. Sleep? What is this sleep you spoke of? Certainly not something _Sam_ was privy to.

When she'd gotten out of the shower and dressed herself in sweat pants and a black shirt she'd stolen from her brother many years ago, she'd left the bathroom to find Dean already asleep. The TV was on some old black-and-white show that kept fuzzing over on the screen every few seconds, but at least they actually got some channels at this dump. The volume was up just loud enough to mask the sound of any traffic outside, but low enough that Dean would still hear someone sneaking up on him. Sam smiled when she saw that he'd been watching old reruns of the Twilight Zone.

Silently as she could, Sam tiptoed over to where Dean was sprawled on the bed closest to the door with an arm and foot hanging off either end. Satisfied he wasn't going to wake, she pulled her sneakers on, and turned the TV just a little bit louder before stealing the keys to the Impala and their motel room and slipping out the door. It probably wouldn't completely mask the sound of the car's engine, but hey, every little bit helps.

Sam wasn't one to play jokes on her brother, she was better than that. She didn't need to win some stupid prank war to know that she was just as clever (if not more so) than her brother, but sometimes… sometimes it was worth it. Whether she participated or not didn't stop Dean, however. Sam had to constantly keep a close eye on him else she'd end up with salt in her coffee instead of sugar, or all the toes cut off her socks. Then there was that one (two, three, and four) time(s) that Dean had snuck into the bathroom while Sam was bathing and put a rubber snake in the sink. The first time that had happened, she'd been ten, and screamed so loud that the people in the room next to them had called the front desk thinking she was being attacked. Their father had been none-too-pleased when he'd returned to check out three days later and heard about the incident. That was one of the only times she'd ever seen her father yell at Dean. Sam had to be especially careful if he was _really_ irritated at her. The last time she'd gone to sleep before him after a really bad fight, she'd woken up with no eyebrows.

You get the idea. Dean was a jerk, and he did shit like this to Sam _all_ the time, and because she was such a gracious sister, she put up with it. And because she was more _mature_ she didn't strike back.

Usually.

However, it just sounded really appealing tonight. Sam was trying not to think about why, because then that would mean she had to admit that she needed the playful bickering even more than Dean, because Lawrence would just be too fucking depressing otherwise, and she didn't even want to _touch_ that train of thought. So you have to understand that it wasn't a normal occurrence for her to steal the Impala in the early evening (Dean must have been more tired than he'd let on) to go and get the supplies she needed. Sam had no idea when, but at some point, her brother had gone out and bought a thing of whiskey. More like acid, really, but Sam wasn't planning on having any, so she'd kept her peace. It hadn't even really turned amber yet, it was that bad. It was more a yellow-orange color that made her think of rancid fruit, but that was perfect for what she had in mind.

Sam turned on the Impala and, as quietly and quickly as she could with that old classic, pulled away from their room. She'd seen a liquor store on the outskirts of town that hopefully had what she was looking for. Took her a fifteen minute drive to get there, and she was glad to see it was still open. Checking to make sure she had enough money and her fake ID card, Sam turned off the car and walked into the building. There were several long shelves full of every colored alcoholic beverage Sam could ever hope to find, and the wall at the back was made of seven different coolers filled with various beer brands. The counter was off to the left of the door, and behind it Sam could see cigarette brands and many bright lighters alongside what appeared to be old Zippo lighters. Neat. There were flasks on display right next to the register where a bored looking girl that seemed barely old enough to be outta high school, let alone sell alcohol, stood examining her pink nails and popping her bubble gum.

For the time being, Sam ignored her, perusing the aisles and searching out exactly what she wanted instead. She found it halfway down the second. Schnapps. Oh, but not just any old Schnapps… _Banana_ Schnapps. Sam grinned as she picked up the clear bottle, roving her eyes over it appreciatively. The liquid was also completely clear, so now she just had to go find some other beverage that was similar in color and would taste exceedingly disgusting when paired with banana. She supposed that if she added some to his whiskey, that would taste pretty bad all by itself, but she really wanted to make this worth it. Sam was nothing, if not thorough, and when she decided to participate in these childish antics, she held nothing back.

A moment of thought and an evil grin later, Sam decided that, no, she wasn't going to mix alcohols to get the color right. She'd pop on over to the store a couple blocks down before they closed and get some apple vinegar. The color was the same, and they had the same vague smell, which would cover the Schnapps, and it would taste worse than anything she could concoct here. Perfect.

Sam quickly bought her banana partner in crime, and the apple vinegar followed soon after. When she got back to the room, Dean was still asleep, and the TV was still on, except now it was just static. Sam toed off her Converse and put them back exactly where they'd been by her bed, because she wasn't the only one trained to notice every detail in a room, and the last time Dean had seen her, she'd been winding down for bed. Not going out to exact her revenge for being cheated out of a shower. Or so he thought.

She padded over to the small fridge across from Dean's bed, and opened it up. Her brother's bottle was the only thing they were using this for, so she pulled it out and set it down gently on the counter next to her. It was still in the brown bag and everything. Trying not to crinkle the bag, Sam pulled out the glass bottle, and set it down. She internally whooped when she saw that Dean had already broken the seal and drank a portion (seriously, _when_ had he bought this thing?), and snuck all of her goodies into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. The tangy, sour smell that she'd noticed when she'd first walked through the doors wasn't as strong in here. Sweat was covered more by vomit and other such… projectile fluids.

Sam twisted off the cap (thanking God once more that Dean had already opened the bottle) and put up the toilet seat, and pouring out every last drop of the cheap, craptastic swill her brother had bought. She watched with a ghost of a smile as it all washed down the drain. Sam set the bottle in the sink and turned her attention to the bag in her arms. She pulled out first, the Schnapps, then the apple vinegar. One clear, one a light, caramel amber that was the closest she could find to the actual color of the whiskey. A little deeper, but she was counting on the Schnapps lightening it up nicely.

Careful not to miss a drop, Sam broke the seal on the bottle of alcohol and poured just a little over halfway of the sweet, banana flavored drink. Curious, she took a small sip and smiled. Way too sweet for her taste, though not too overpowering, and oh yeah, that was _definitely_ banana. She'd smelled the fruit as soon as she'd opened the bottle, but man. That was a lot stronger than she'd expected it to be.

Brilliant.

Next, the vinegar. Sam gagged a little when she opened that bottle, but she suffered through it as she poured the liquid to about where her brother had drained himself a drink. She set that bottle down, put the cap back on his whiskey bottle and shook it to mix it all. The color was a little _too_ washed out, so she poured some down the sink and added a little bit more vinegar. Much better. Sam set her repulsive mix on the ground and washed her hands. Then, she wet a (mostly) white hand towel and washed the bottle with the damp end and dried it with the other. She ran the water in the sink a little bit longer after she was finished with it to wash the evidence, and the smell, down the drain.

Finally finished with her self-proclaimed ingenious idea, Sam poked her head out of the bathroom. Her brother was snoring, flopped on his stomach, his left foot, boot and all, hanging of the end. His left hand was up above his head on the pillow, and his right was trapped under his stomach. His right foot was bent at the knee, and resting on the back of his left leg. Sam shook her head, allowing herself a small smile. She walked back over to where the empty bag sat on the counter and put the (not) whiskey back in first the brown sack, then the fridge. Trying not to giggle, Sam walked over to where her duffle was resting by the bed and hid the rest of the Schnapps and the apple vinegar under the top layer of clothes, leaving two pairs of pants as cushioning underneath. She'd find some way to get rid of them later. Right now, she needed all the sleep she could get, because after her brother had a sip, there was no _way_ she was going to bed before him. She'd wake up with no hair, anywhere, this time.

Sam put her now charged (and completely forgotten) computer on the nightstand to her right, and crawled under the covers. She grabbed the remote and turned off the TV, feeling a little unsettled in the sudden silence, and then turned off the lamp in between her and Dean's bed. She was plunged into darkness, save for the dim, neon glow filtering through the window shades. Sam turned over to her right side, trying to avoid that one spring that would give her bruises, but didn't feel tired yet. She craned her head around to look at the clock and sighed. It read 1:42 AM, in angry, red numbers.

Sam turned back away and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, and settled in as best she could. She didn't know how long she lay there in the darkness, listening to the random car drive by on the street outside, or the buzzing electricity from the sign in the parking lot, but it felt like forever before she finally felt drowsy. Sam shifted her feet and moved away from the annoying spot on her mattress, and let herself drift away.

She'd probably be up in a couple hours, whether she'd had another nightmare or not. Her body was so used to the abuse she put it through after she'd left Palo Alto that she didn't sleep much, even if her sleep was dreamless. No matter.

At least she'd get all the hot water this time.

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><p>Unsurprisingly, Sam woke up first. However, it <em>was<em> a surprise that she'd gotten a full four hours. It was going on six when she rolled out of bed. Her brother was still asleep, still snoring, and still booted. Sam stretched all of her soreness away, popping her neck and her back noisily. She was exhausted, and swore she could fall back asleep if she let herself, but shit she was hungry. She hadn't eaten anything at the bar last night, and a long time before that, too. She could almost feel her stomach digesting itself.

Blearily, Sam knelt down and pulled out an outfit and her black travel bag of toiletries before stumbling in to the shower. Coffee. She needed coffee. Just hook it up to her veins through an IV, please. And a shower, because _someone_ had made it impossible for her to take a one _yesterday_. Her hair felt greasy and gross after resting on that piece of cloth they claimed were pillows. Did they even wash them after people checked out? Sam shivered. Probably not. Which was fucking disgusting by the way.

Sam shut the door to the bathroom, turning on the light, just so she could see where the towels were, and set her things down on top of the toilet. Thoughts of last night (earlier that morning?) drifted through the fog in her brain, and she grinned sleepily. She'd giggle over that when she was getting food, she was too tired to appreciate her genius just now.

Sam was tempted to use all the hot water, but then she told herself that she'd already taken her revenge, and she wasn't petty. This meant she couldn't shave like she wanted, which made her unhappy, but even that wouldn't sway her decision. So, she kept her shower unusually short so that there was still a little warmth left for her brother and slipped into her clothes. She didn't put her hair up in a towel like she normally did, because honestly, she didn't trust that those stains were completely washed out, but she did get as much of the moisture out as she could. She felt so much more awake now. More alive. God bless whoever invented showers.

She worse loose, light blue jeans that were just starting to fray over her right knee, her sneakers, and a deep blue tank top underneath her forest green V-neck. Her mother's ring was hidden underneath her clothes, but the silver chain was mostly visible. Sam turned the light back on and opened her bag of amenities. She brushed her teeth first, musing that she needed to buy some more toothpaste soon. When her mouth felt clean again, she took out her small brush and groomed out the tangles so her hair could dry. The soap her brother had bought for them left her hands feel dry and gritty, so she also took out her travel-size bottle of odorless lotion, grumbling that _she_ was going to be buying all their soap from now on. She didn't care if what her brother bought was the cheapest brand, it sucked ass.

Finished with her daily morning routine, Sam turned off the light and left the bathroom. Her brother would be waking soon, probably not before she got back with food, so it didn't really matter how long she took. She could splurge if she wanted, and go somewhere that didn't have food dripping in grease and fat. Her stomach grumbled noisily, and she patted it consolingly. She put away her pajamas, and little travel bag, and once again stole her brother's car keys.

Out in the Impala, Sam paused. They had a little under three hours until the time they'd agreed to go pick up Missouri. Less than three hours until Sam was possibly confronted with whatthefuckever had turned her life topsy-turvy. Sam had been looking for months, for _months_, for any kind of explanation, and she'd come up with nothing. She didn't know how much longer she could wait before she just snapped and starting shooting at everything, and Missouri was one of her last hopes. She tried to keep that from happening, because that would mean Sam had gotten lucky, and when were the Winchesters every _lucky_? Easier said than done. It was like a little bird flitting around in her chest, and it felt warm and comfortable, and some of the hurting that hadn't ever really stopped when she'd left Palo Alto kind of toned down. It still didn't go away (like she'd said, Sam bled forever), but it was pushed to a back burner, and away from the forefront.

But hope was a bad thing in this line of work, because it led to disappointment, and too much disappointment gave you a dead Hunter. And Sam wasn't planning on staying a Hunter forever, so she'd like it if she outlived her demons. Sure, she'd Hunt with her brother for now, and yeah, maybe she even enjoyed it a little, but she didn't want this to be her whole _life_. She still had goals and dreams she wanted. She still wanted to be a lawyer, she wanted a place she could call home that wasn't a rumbling, metal beast from the late 60's. She'd thought that a family would have been nice to have after she'd met Roger, but now… she wasn't so sure about that anymore, but she'd appreciate if she could at least have the option to say no to a family because she genuinely didn't want one, and not because she wasn't allowed one.

All that is to say, she wasn't going to stay in this life until the end of days, no matter what her brother thought or felt. When she'd finally gotten her revenge and put the piece of Roger still stuck in her soul to rest… _then_ she would be done. And so help her God, if her brother or father asked her for help again, she would break their fucking faces.

But that was the future. And to get to the future, she still had to live through today.

Sam wasn't sure that she had the strength for that, depending on what Missouri found out. She needed help. Normally she would draw strength from her brother, but ya know, for some strange reason, she didn't know if he had enough for himself, let alone his little sister. So she prayed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yack it up. Sam, trained-in-the-life-and-then-ex-and-now-back-again-Hunter… religious? Gotta be joking, right? Well, it's not a joke, so you can just shut up. It isn't about praising some Holy Spirit in hopes that she gets past the pearly gates after she dies. It's about her believing that there has to be some _good_ in this world that she's fighting for, that there is something out there, bigger than herself, that will make all the blood, heartbreak, scars, broken families, and burned corpses worth it in the end. That all of this isn't for nothing. That there isn't just evil waiting in every shadow, ready to tear her to shreds. There's a balance to everything, as cheesy as that sounds, and if there was too much evil, the world would have gone down the drain eons ago. There has to be a God, because it doesn't make sense for there _not_ to be. Ya see?

So she prays every day (at least she tries to), and she confesses everything so that her soul feels clean, and she has it in her just to get out of bed in the morning. You think that's too sissy of her, or that she's weak and has a chink in her armor, you can go get bent. You try being a Hunter for practically your whole life, do the things that _she's_ done, and we'll see if _you_ don't need some higher power to make you feel better too.

Anyway. The Impala. Right.

Sitting there, the leather cold against her skin, she prayed. Not a long, lengthy one where she spills all the beans. No, she usually saves those for her shower, and today she hadn't had one long enough for that. This prayer was just for her to ask for the strength to get through the day and for protection for her brother, Missouri, and Jenny. And a little help from stopping her visions from coming true. All of one minute, and she was done, and she felt much better for it.

Sam rolled down the window (it was a warm day already) and turned on the car. She pulled away, and drove around for food. Her stomach was upset with having been ignored for so long, and nothing sounded better to her than a short stack and some coffee. Mmm… coffee. And maybe, when she was done, she could poke around on that site a bit more, see if she found anything useful.

Doubtful, but when had she ever let something so small stop her?

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><p><strong>Okay, so I actually got a chance to red this over several times, so (hopefully) there aren't that many mistakes. I apologize if there are. Tell me about them, and I'll try and change them for ya!<strong>

**What do y'all think of Sam's prank on her brother? Took me a little while to think up, but I love how it turned out. And waking up with no eyebrows, especially when you're a girl? Yeesh. Dean's lucky he still has all his body parts.**

**Review! Review, I say!**

**Just kidding.**

**But no, really, though. REVIEW.**

**Peace.**


	8. Not it, Them

**Hello, my beauties!**

**I got time for a quick update here! Sorry it took longer than I thought for Missouri to let our Winchesters in on the secret. Personally, I'm not entirely too sure about this chapter, but it'll suffice for now. Sorry about any mistakes, I haven't had time to read through it.**

**As always, I shamelessly beg for reviews! They feed my soul and make me one happy panda! I love pandas, don't you? They're so cute. Seriously. Panda hats, slippers, blankets? ADORABLE. Ya can't go wrong with pandas, my friends! **

**Enjoy! I'll try and have the next chapter up soon, but no promises!**

**Love,**

**MD**

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_**

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><p>Thankfully, it was much easier the second time Sam found herself standing on the doorstep of her old house. She had a much better grip on her emotions this time, and ever since she'd prayed for strength and protection in the Impala that morning, she'd found it was easier for her to be at peace with this place. It held great sorrow for her family, but she didn't even remember it. She could be clinical about all this. Professional. Just another Hunt to her.<p>

For the moment, anyway.

Sam raised her hand and knocked twice on the door, her knuckles rapping firmly against the wood. Dean stood to her right and Missouri was waiting patiently behind the siblings. Better for Jenny to see familiar faces before they barged in to look for some terrible nightmare, Missouri had said. Sam agreed.

It took several long moments but the door finally swung open to show Jenny, looking distraught and disheveled, and her son Ritchie with a sippie-cup of juice in his hands. The blonde mother was cradling her son to her chest as if he were fragile and could break at any moment, and her eyes were wide with panic. Her hair was just starting to fall out of a ponytail, and she was breathing just a little too fast for her to have simply walked to answer the door. Sam quirked her eyebrow, confused and a little concerned with this woman's obvious fear, but she said nothing.

"Sam, Dean, what are you doing here?" Her voice sounded a little desperate and wavered a bit. Sam flicked her eyes over to her brother who was attempting a feeble smile. Sam ducked her head sheepishly and gave the blonde a lopsided grin.

"Hey, Jenny." Sam stepped to the side a little bit so that Missouri could squeeze to the front and be seen. She was just a little bit shorter than Sam, but it was hard to tell with her poufy hair. "This is our friend Missouri."

"If it's not too much trouble," Dean said, "we were hoping to show her the house. Ya know, for old time's sake." Jenny tightened her grip on her son and frowned, annoyed.

"Actually, this isn't a good time for me. I'm kind of busy," she huffed dismissively. Sam wasn't offended. After all, she was only a civilian, and even if she _had_ been experiencing odd things, her brain would supply an explanation for it, even if it was far from the truth. Civilians always had explanations. And why not? They were sheltered, innocent little things. They didn't know any better. It wasn't that Jenny was openly denying their help. She didn't even know they were there _to_ help. So, no, she wasn't offended. Dean however, looked a little put-out, and started to panic.

"Listen, Jenny, it's impor – Ow!" Dean's voice cut off with a surprised grunt when Missouri's hand reached up and promptly smacked the back of his head. Sam blinked, shocked, but then ducked her head away from her brother to hide her grin. If nothing else, Sam decided, she was glad they came here and met Missouri. If that was the only thing that happened here (doubtful), Sam would call this a success.

"Give the poor girl a break! Can't you see she's upset?" Missouri snapped before smoothing out her face and turning to face Jenny. "Forgive this boy, he means well, he's just not the sharpest tool in the shed. But hear me out!"

Dean's face at that moment was priceless. He looked like he didn't know whether to be angry, offended, confused, or petulant. From the looks of things, he felt a little bit of everything. His mouth settled in what Sam guessed was supposed to be an angry line, but his mouth was too full and feminine for such a hard line, and it looked a little more like a pout. Sam would cut off her own tongue before she said this, but she secretly thought Dean was kind of adorable when he was pouting. Like a five year old kid that just got robbed of some extra candy.

"About what?" Jenny's suspicious voice drew Sam out of her head, and she sobered her thoughts. It was one thing to be peaceful and unafraid of what was to come, but it was another to be distracted and recklessly endanger someone.

Missouri's eyes glinted seriously and her mouth pulled up in a small, secret smile. She leaned forward just a little, and Jenny (probably unconsciously) leaned forward as well, drawn in by the mystery and warmth the psychic exuded.

"About this house," Missouri murmured. Sam and Dean shuffled uncomfortably on the front porch, momentarily forgotten by the two women. Dean caught his sister's eye and rolled his eyes impatiently. Sam knew that look. Dean thought all this talking was stupid. He didn't want to explain things to her; he wanted to get this over with. Sam shrugged in response. She knew what her brother was thinking, but she didn't agree with it. It would save all of them a great deal of trouble if they could get Jenny to realize there was something paranormally wrong here and they were there to help. Taking in the fact that the general human population was raised with parents, in a stable environment, with familiar faces and friends and a normal lifestyle… Sam had a feeling that talking to Jenny would produce a better outcome than muscling their way through the door. Whether Dean agreed or not didn't particularly matter in this case. After all… the dull tools are never reached for first. Sam grinned to herself and turned her attention back to the two women. There was some part of the conversation she'd missed, apparently because now Jenny was inviting them in the house.

Sam gave her brother a pointed look, making sure it was a little smug. She knew it annoyed him when she was right about something (which was usually the case) and gloated about it. And we all know that Dean is just so adorable when he pouts, right? Right? Right.

Satisfied with the jut of her brother's lip and the cheated expression on her brother's face, Sam stepped inside. Unsurprisingly, Jenny didn't escort them around the house, choosing instead to take Ritchie to his room for a nap. Missouri assured her they would find their way around just fine, and without any hesitation, the psychic woman took the lead, heading up the stairs. When they got to the top, they turned around and went down a hall until they came to the first door and, without so much as a sniff, she shoved open the door and walked in.

The room was a pale blue with a white ceiling. There was a bed on the far wall to their right. It was small. Like a twin. Judging by the purple butterfly stickers above the headboard, it was most likely Sari's room. Sam couldn't be entirely sure, but Ritchie didn't strike her as a butterfly kind of kid.

There was a nightstand on either side of Sari's bed, and a desk on the wall opposite the entrance they were standing in. The small desk stood under a large window with the curtains drawn shut. The wall closest to them, opposite the bed, had two large doors that led to what Sam assumed was an equally large walk-in closet. Lucky Sari.

The floor had a plush white carpet that almost made Sam wish she wasn't wearing shoes, it looked so soft. There was a bookcase just to the right of the door filled with books like _Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH_ (an excellent child's book in Sam's humble opinion) and _Eragon_. Sam had never seen that book before in her life, but judging by the blue dragon smirking on the front cover, she felt it was safe to assume that it was a fantasy book. The size was impressive for someone of Sari's age, but Sam figured that thick didn't necessarily mean challenging. It could very well be an easy read. Just… a _long_, easy read. Personally, Sam liked _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ a lot. Right up there with _Gone with the Wind_ (hey, sometimes Sam just needs to cry about someone _else's_ problems, alright?), her metaphysical textbook from her freshman year at Stanford, _Mein Kampf_ (because she's still trying to figure out how the people she saves every day could be just as evil as what she Hunts), and the odd history book every now and then (preferably non-fiction).

Missouri walked into the room first, looking like she was sizing up an enemy.

"If there's a dark energy around here, this room should be the center of it," she muttered. Sam crooked an eyebrow at her.

"Why?" Missouri turned around, her eyes sad but determined. She pursed her lips before looking towards the window.

"This used to be your nursery, Sam," she whispered. For a moment, Sam wasn't even sure she'd heard the psychic right, but then she noticed that her brother's face had paled, and she knew with a sick sense of dread that she'd heard Missouri just fine. Without even noticing what she was doing, Sam's eyes immediately flicked up to the ceiling. Painted white, perfect, and pristine. Not a single mark to show that her mother had been burned beyond recognition, no markers to give any due respect or sorrow for such an unhappy place. God, Sari _slept_ underneath that ceiling. Sam tore her eyes away and glared down at the floor.

She felt sick.

Missouri gave a soft sigh, staring sympathetically at Sam until she shuffled her feet. She didn't want this woman's pity; she just wanted some answers so she could get the fuck out of here, because suddenly, it was a lot harder to breathe comfortably. Dean cleared his throat, and just like that, Missouri stopped paying attention to Sam. Take it from someone who knows, if you ever get the option to work with someone who can read your thoughts and the confusing, tormented, swirling, pained energies you emit… _don't._

Walking slowly to the nightstand on the right side of Sari's bed, Missouri extended her hands out, hovering just above a couple notebooks and pens within easy reach of the young girl's mattress. She wasn't quite touching anything, her hand was a couple inches away from paper and ink, but Sam had the feeling that Missouri was definitely feeling something. After a second, she pulled her hand away and started to meander towards the desk. Next to Sam, who was looking around the room, trying to commit every detail to memory, Dean pulled out his homemade EMF. It looked like crap with all the exposed wires and guts of a poor, poor Walkman, but Sam was impressed with how well it worked. Her brother liked to come off as the one with less intelligence so that _she_ was left to do all the grunt work and put the dots together when they spent thankless hours sifting through articles and crap at a library, but don't buy in to it. Dean was just as smart as Sam. Maybe more, depending on your perspective. The difference between them was that Sam's intelligence was mostly book smarts, picking up things in Palo Alto or even in the years before that when her family had made her handle all the research, and her brother had street smarts.

Sam couldn't make an EMF from scratch like her brother; she'd checked outta this business before her dad had taught her that nifty trick. Though, honestly, Sam thought Dean had more than likely taught himself how to build and EMF. And Dean was definitely more experienced with hand-to-hand fighting, though not for lack of trying on Sam's part. She had studied what her brother and father had taught her, had watched them, and copied until she knew moves and where to hit. But Dean _immersed_ himself so completely in fighting that he didn't have to take that split-second of calculation Sam needed to decide how to block, because it became as natural as breathing. Sam was faster than her brother, but he was the more experienced fighter (though Sam stubbornly held that they were evenly matched). For all this, though, it didn't mean Sam was stupid. She'd gone through the same training as her brother, knew the same facts about the supernatural, and could handle a Hunt just as competently as he could… but she couldn't build an EMF. Just like Dean couldn't hack into someone's bank accounts like Sam could, because he didn't speak the same language as computer like Sam did. And he didn't know how a business kept track of all their transactions, and where to look for anything suspicious in their accounts.

So don't believe her brother if he tried to make you believe he was the lesser threat when it came to brains. The last time someone underestimated Dean… well… be glad you weren't there.

"That an EMF?" Missouri asked, her attention drawn by the subtle whirring Dean's machine made when he flipped it on. Her brother looked up and nodded proudly. Missouri eyed it with contempt before sniffing and going back to feeling the energy around the desk. "Amateur."

Dean scowled, rolling his eye and muttering curses under his breath. Sam allowed herself a small grin, watching the pair in front of her for a moment before continuing to examine her ex-nursery-turned-young-child's-bedroom. Her smile dropped off her face quickly as a sharp stab of jealousy soured her mood.

This should have been _her_ bedroom as a little girl. Those butterflies should have been _her_ butterflies. This was the childhood she'd never had, painted blue and white, with pretty white curtains and a sunny window. She believed in God and thanked him every day that she was still alive but… sometimes he really confused her. He was all about being fair and loving thy neighbor and feel-good crap like that, right? Well if he was such a happy hippie, why did he let such evil things happen? It didn't make sense.

Dean nudged her with his elbow, startling Sam out of her grumpy thoughts. She glared and shoved back. Her brother rolled his eyes and threw her a look that said, _'shut and pay attention, stupid'_ and really? Did he always have to look at her like that when he got frustrated? Because it was really starting to annoy. Dean motioned to his EMF, which was going nuts in his hands. It was silent for a second and then the whirring got louder and louder, the five red lights on top flaring to life angrily, then it was quiet down almost all the way before screeching again noisily. Sam stepped closer, examining the panel on the front. A needle kept going back and forth from the yellow portion that indicated low energy to the red side, which meant ghosties were bouts to get nasty.

Sam reached her right hand up and shoved it inside her inside pocket of her jacket, feeling around for the vile of salt she always kept with her. It wasn't much and wouldn't keep a ghost gone for very long, and there was just enough to use once, but still, it made her feel better. If this thing _was_ a ghost. Damn. She had no idea what this thing was, and there were several creatures that came to mind that could turn invisible and were immune to salt. Well fuck. She didn't feel so comforted anymore.

"I don't know if you two should be disappointed or relieved, but this ain't the thing that took your mom," Missouri said. Sam and Dean looked up from the chirping contraption in his hands. Sam frowned. Well… if it wasn't the same thing, then that meant that what had taken Roger back in Palo Alto wasn't here. Sam had been unsure since they'd first came to Lawrence whether or not she'd wanted that confrontation just yet, but when she felt the anger and dissatisfaction, she realized that yes, she'd wanted that fight. She'd wanted it very much. And now she had to keep looking. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Are you sure?" Sam implored. Missouri met her eyes gravelly and nodded. "How do you know?"

"It isn't the same energy I felt the last time I was here. It's somethin' different." Sam clenched her hands into fists. All that tension and build up since fucking _California_ when she'd first had this vision, convinced she was finally going to exact her revenge for Roger, and it was all for nothing. She had an entire country underneath her feet, roughly 3,000 miles from one coast to the next, and it could be _anywhere_. Assuming, of course, that it was even in the United States. Fuck. Fucking fuck fucker FUCK. Sam ground her teeth together to stop herself from saying brash, angry things she knew she'd regret later. Deep inside her chest she felt something slither around sluggishly, and she knew it was that demonic rage she'd buried ever since Black Water Ridge.

"What is it?" Dean asked. She couldn't tell from his tone of voice whether he was disappointed like Sam was. Whether that was because he was guarding his voice against revealing too much or because he didn't know, she wasn't sure.

"Not _it_," Missouri said adamantly, walking over to the closet and opening the door to walk in. Yep, just as big as Sam had assumed. "_Them_. There's more than one spirit in this place." Well great, this day just kept getting better and better. First Sam founds out she still had a long, grueling search for whatever had ruined her life – _twice_ – and now she found out there was more than one supernatural beastie infesting this place? Well, thank you God, is there anything _else_ you want to toss in, ya know, just to keep things interesting?

"What are they doing here?" Dean sounded confused to Sam, which was a surprise. She thought he would have been more angry than puzzled. But hey, she was fuming, so maybe that was clouding her judgment. Just a little. Who was she to tell?

Missouri left the closet, doors wide open, and came to stand in front of the siblings. Dean shut off his EMF and put it back in coat. Sam crossed her arms. The psychic woman's face looked so sad, so tired, that Sam's anger dimmed. It wasn't fair of her to get so frustrated with this woman; it wasn't her fault that this wasn't the same thing. She was just here to help them.

"They're here because of what happened to your family," she said softly. "You see, all those years ago, real evil came to you. It walked this house. That kind of evil leaves _wounds_… And sometimes, wounds get infected." Sam shook her head. She knew there was something Missouri was trying to say to her, some point she was trying to make, but her mind was swirling with some many questions, trying to cover so many possibilities as to where she'd find the monster she wanted, why it had targeted Sam (because why else would it be in _her_ nursery and then kill _her_ boyfriend), that she just didn't get it.

"I don't understand," Sam muttered grudgingly. Dean flicked his eyes over to her in surprise. Yeah, yeah, she never said those words on a Hunt, but whatever. It had been a long day, and she was already wishing she could shove her head under a pillow and pass out.

"This place is a magnet for paranormal activity," Missouri explained patiently. Maybe she could sense the turmoil inside Sam's head. Again with the sympathy. Ugh. "It's attracted a poltergeist. A nasty one. And it won't rest until Jenny and her babies are dead."

Well. That sounded… lovely. Ya know, in a gruesome, horrible kind of way. As in, not lovely at all. A poltergeist, that was… that was just awesome. Sam despised poltergeists. Not because they were hard to deal with, on the contrary, they were quite easy to get rid of if one had the proper tools, but they were so annoying and such a raging pain in the ass. And the headaches Sam got, oh don't even get her _started_ on those. Although, if she wasn't careful, everything gave her a headache these days. Now that she thought about it, she always got headaches and migraines easier ever since she'd first had her visions in Palo Alto. That was… weird…

Sam shook her head. Back on track, darling. Missouri was only talking about _one_ of the spirits, and she'd talked about them in the plural before. There was at least one unaccounted for.

"You said there was more than one spirit," Sam said. Missouri nodded and walked back in to the closet. Okay, so there was one centered around Sari's closet. Gotcha. Wait… hadn't Sari said something about that yesterday? A figure on fire, right? What kind of spirit was _that_? Poltergeists weren't generally on fire. Poltergeists weren't normally seen, actually, they just kind of freaked you out until you were ready to tear your hair out, and then they killed you from the comfort of invisibility. Cowardly shits.

"There is. I just can't quite make out the second one…" Missouri's voice faded and she scrunched up her nose in concentration. Now that she thought about it, Sam could almost feel… _something_. Not so much a presence, but a kind of tickling on the back on her neck. And a crawling sensation over her skin, like she was around too much electricity. But just as soon as it had come, it was gone, and she didn't feel anything other than her own unsettling and extremely troubled emotions. Damn. If Sam could feel these things, they must be really powerful.

Sam looked over at her brother to see if he was as freaked out as she was, but he just looked angry. And determined, if the set of his jaw was anything to go by. She knew that look. It was the look he got whenever a Hunt became personal and he was going to extinguish whatever they were Hunting or die. So he hadn't sensed that?

Hmm.

"Well one thing's for _damn_ sure, nobody's dyin' in this house ever again," he growled, stepping towards the closet intimidatingly, like he could scare whatever was hiding away from this house. "So whatever it is, how do we stop it?"

For the first time since stopping in front of this house, Missouri smiled. It was small, but relieved and full of all the sass Sam had seen in her yesterday. She stepped out of the closet, and Sam squared her shoulder. Whatever she'd… felt, it was gone now. And even though she wouldn't get her revenge today, there was still an innocent family to save. She still had visions to prevent. There was no sense dawdling around like a frightened puppy when they had work to do. Her brother hadn't raised her to be a chicken, and she wasn't going to start being one now. She was a Winchester dammit, and Winchesters weren't afraid of anything. More or less. Most of the time. Well… there were a few things, just, don't tell anybody. Trade secret.

"We go back to my house, for now. I have some things that'll help up." Dean nodded and turned and walked out the door without a second look. Missouri gave Sam a bigger, more encouraging smile, and then followed. Sam hesitated. She took one last look around the room, and, almost as an afterthought, shut Sari's closet doors. Glancing at the ceiling, Sam frowned. She huffed and resituated her jacket.

"Sam, c'mon, get a move on!" Dean hollered from the stairs outside. Sam walked to the door and set her hand on the doorknob, pulling it shut as she walked out. Before it clicked shut, though, she took one last mournful look at the ceiling before shutting the door to the room that held the beginning to all this madness.

"_Bye, mom."_ She thought as she trailed after her brother. If she concentrated hard enough, she could almost heard whispers calling out to her from behind Sari's door. Sam told herself it was her mom wishing her good luck.

It was less depressing that way.

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><p><strong>Thoughts? Likes? Dislikes? Anything y'all wanna see happen in that in-between moments Sam and Dean have on this Hunt? Then you know where to go! Press that lovely button at the bottom and leave me your ideas and critiques! Go ahead, press it! Prrreeeeesssssssss iiiiiiiiiiiiiit!<strong>

**Seriously.**

**Press the freaking button.**

**Peace!**


	9. Come Around Sundown

**Hullo, my sweets!**

**I like how this turned out. And I totes got to use something that Chuck mentions in the season five finale, yo! That made me happy like no one's bizz.**

**I wanted to flesh out another one of Sam's flaws in this chapter. She lets her own arrogance get in the way, and she misjudges how simple getting rid of the poltergeist will be and nearly chokes to death because of it. I tried not to be _so_ obvious about this one because in the show, our lovely Sammy doesn't _seem_ all that arrogant to me. He's all smiles, and soulful stares, and 'Aww, shucks' with his pride underneath. I hope I did a decent job!**

**Almost done with this 'episode,' y'all! Just a couple more chapters, methinks, and then it's one to the next! Any suggestions for the next episode? I haven't decide which one I wanna do just yet. I'm open to ideas! Just hit me up, lovelies!**

**As always, please tell me what you think with this lovely tool we have on this website called a review! It's really super, y'all should try it out. As in, do it. As in, leave me a review. Please and thank you!**

**Much love,**

**MD**

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!**_

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><p>They gathered in the dining room this time. That tiny little room that Sam had only gotten a glimpse of the day before, with sunlight streaming through the windows, and the wooden table and chairs and floor. It's where Missouri said she keeps the stuff she used when someone had a serious problem. Sam didn't really consider poltergeists serious problems; in her experience they were kind of like a thorn stuck in your foot more than a gun at your head. They stung like a bitch, and <em>man<em> did they get annoying, but as long as they were dealt with properly, there wasn't any real damage. Poltergeists could get nasty, for sure, and would totally toss you around and gut you with a kitchen knife if you weren't careful, but Sam had been trained smart. She wasn't some incompetent shithead. She knew how to deal with things this low on the food-chain, and knew what to look out for so she didn't die. Might get a couple bruises (broken bone, worst case scenario), but that was it. So, no, she wasn't intimidated (actually, now that she'd gotten some space and thought rationally about it, she was glad that all Jenny was dealing with was a poltergeist). But apparently, Missouri was.

She'd pulled out vials and glass bottles from her china cabinet, along with some strange liquids, what looked like dirt, some box that had things rattling around inside, dried plants, and an assortment of other things Sam didn't have the care to examine. Dean sat down in front of the windows, facing the door they'd walked through, with some cloth, string, and other such things and was told to put a little bit of everything on a cloth and wrap it into a bag. Sam would have helped, but she was too distracted to do much of anything except stand to the right of her brother, her hand on the back of a chair. She hadn't realized just _how_ hopeful she'd been to get her revenge until Missouri snuffed it out. And no, she didn't really blame the lady, because she was just doing what she promised, but that didn't mean Sam had to like it.

Seriously. Revenge, closure, and done. As in _done_ done. As in, Sam goes back to school kind of done. At least… well… no! No, definitely no, she was going back to school when her and Dean Hunted down this creature.

When she'd first left Palo Alto with her brother all those months ago, she hadn't just fallen off the face of the earth. She contacted her teachers and all the staff officials she needed to so that she could get permission to take a much-needed break and come back at the start of this coming summer term, which was still a good few months away. Her grades had been so outstanding up to this point that her professors had all agreed with smiles and best wishes (did she mention she was a straight A student? Oh she didn't? Well… she was.). Of course, Sam hadn't told her brother this yet. It wasn't that she was scared of his reaction, she was just… scared of what he'd say.

Which are two completely different things.

But yeah. Stanford. That was on hold for now. As soon as she was finished wiping out whatever supernatural pest had killed her mom and Roger, she'd pick up where she left off at school. Go back to her old life (could she even call it her old life, if she'd been Hunting first..?), no problem. Become a lawyer, and if she got restless, she'd pick up some kind of physical activity. Maybe Karate, or something like that. Learn some legit martial arts, with structure and all that shit. Street fighting was more practical for what the Winchesters did, but she thought it'd be nice to know some _actual_ martial arts. Someday. That, and, ya know, she wouldn't _need_ to know street brawling when she went back to school because that really _would _be the end of it. No more Hunting. Just safe, secure, and simple. None of this would happen, however, until she smote this mother into oblivion, and since she couldn't do it here, she'd have more waiting and more searching.

Sam hated waiting.

"So what is this stuff, anyway?" Dean piped up just as he was sprinkling something brown and gritty onto the maroon cloth. Missouri was behind Sam, fiddling around with hidden things in the china cabinet and brought a few more vials out to the table. She shrugged as she set the strangely colored items down and sat across from Dean. From where Sam stood to their side, she had a perfect view of them both. The psychic woman pointed at clump of dried… something, and spoke.

"Angelica Root, Van Van oil, crossroad dirt, and a few other odds and ends." Sam's eyes roved over the small box of dirt, the circular bottle half full with a clear liquid, and the small pile her brother was building with no real interest. Dean examined the pinch of dried Angelica Root he had curiously and brought it to his mouth, dabbing a little on his tongue. Sam rolled her eyes as he made a sour face and tried to discreetly spit the dry plant out of his mouth. What, had he thought it would taste like mint?

"And what are we supposed to do with all this, exactly?" Sam eyed her brother's growing pile of strange things. If he added just a little more dirt to the top in a point, it'd almost look like a scale model of Mt. Hood over in Oregon.

"We're gonna put them inside the walls in north, south, east, and west corners on each floor of the house."

"We're gonna be punching holes in the dry wall?" Dean grumbled as he started wrapping up his concoction into a bag. "Jenny's gonna _love_ that." Missouri looked up at Dean with hooded eyes and a wry smile.

"She'll _live_," she whispered slyly. Dean met her gaze for a moment before shrugging and wrapping twine around the cloth to keep it closed. Sam looked over the items they were adding together. Some of this stuff she'd never even heard of before. She'd never used this method to get rid of a poltergeist before; they'd always purified the haunted area by smudging with sage and other cleansing herbs or using Latin. Sam didn't doubt that Missouri knew her stuff, but she didn't have personal experience with it, and that left her a little unsettled and wary.

"This'll destroy the spirits?" she asked. The psychic woman didn't look up from her own pile, but she nodded.

"It should. It should purify the house completely. We'll each take a floor." At this she looked up sharply at the siblings, letting the weight of her words carry over through her dark brown eyes. "But work _fast_. Once the spirits realize what we're up to, things are gonna get… bad."

"Well that's just lovely," Dean grumbled, working on his third bag. He looked at some smudges of dirt on his hand disdainfully before wiping off the remnants on his pants. He looked incredibly bored just piling things onto a square cloth before wrapping it up and tying it off. Sam sighed, wishing she had something to do, before an idea struck her, and she grinned.

"Hey Missouri?" Sam asked.

"Mm?"

"Do you have wi-fi?" Missouri and Dean stopped what they were doing, giving each other a look before both turning to face Sam. Missouri looked mildly curious, a small smile playing on her lips and one of eyebrows arching, and Dean looked confused, his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed.

"Sure do, sweetie. What you need it for?" Sam shrugged noncommittally.

"Oh, just need to look something up." Dean rolled his eyes, turning his attention back to his fourth bag.

"C'mon, Sammy, lay off the search for five minutes. You were at it all night last night. Just… chill out." Sam shook her head, tapping her fingers impatiently on the back of the chair she was standing behind.

"No, man, that's not what I'm going after. Well, not this time anyway." Dean glanced at her, quirking an eyebrow. Sam smiled. "You'll find out. So, Missouri, does your internet have a password?" Dean frowned at the obvious dismissal, but tough. Big boy could deal. 'Sides, she _was_ about to become the most fuckawesome sister, so he could make do with not knowing for now.

"Yeah, lemme get that for ya, sweetie." Sam smiled her thanks as Missouri got up from the table and walked off into her house. Before her brother could start drilling her for answers, she skipped off to go get her laptop out of the car. When she got back, the older woman helped her get all set up before returning back to the dining room to finish up with her purification bags. Sam took root in the sitting room with the pretty carpet and couch from yesterday, away from prying green eyes and her brother's unstoppable curiosity.

See, months and months and months ago, Sam had been looking around for concerts to take Lucy and Roger to (she'd been planning to pop their classic rock cherries, so to speak), and she vaguely remembered this one website… where was it… ah yes! She'd had to go way, way, _way_ back into her search history, but there it was. All that time ago, she'd remembered pointing out to Roger many concerts they could plan way in advance for. Wasn't there one next week that… there was! Oh boy. Ozzy Osbourne. That was one Sam and Dean hadn't gone to yet. And if she bought them now, they could get relatively good seats.

Sam was counting on this to win over her brother's forgiveness for whenever he took a drink from his (not) whiskey. She felt it would work. Well, mostly. Sort of. Kinda. Hopefully…

She'd just make sure to get front row seats.

'Course, that meant her card was completely done now, so she'd have to use cash until she could send in another application. Dean wouldn't like that, cash was only supposed to be for food and gas, but she thought he'd make an exception this time. Sam quickly went through the process of buying her tickets online and getting the confirmation number (she grimaced at the price, because really, money _was_ an issue now that her life was uprooted and those figures made her head spin) and shut her computer, letting it drift off to sleep mode. Dean and Missouri should be finishing up pretty soon. She'd just prance off to the dining room to see if there were any last-minute things that she could help with, and then it'd be wham, bam, thank you ma'am. No more nasties in their old house, Sari could sleep safely under the ceiling where her mom died (that still made Sam gag), and Ritchie could drink juice to his heart's content.

Easy.

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><p>"You take the top floor, Sammy. I'll take the ground floor, and Missouri, you can take the basement." Sam nodded, her four maroon bags in one hand, and a hammer in the other. It hadn't taken more than a few seconds to figure out which way was north since Sam and Dean were always paying attention to little things like the sunset (John had always taught them that no detail was too small to be noticed), and with their respective floors delegated, they set off. It was just starting to get really dark outside. It was that time where it was on the cusp of being night, but tendrils of daylight were still clinging to the fringes of the sky. The sky was clear tonight, not a cloud in sight. Stars were twinkling down and laughing at the small planet, and for some reason, Sam's hair had been on end. She… she didn't like this. She didn't feel comfortable, and she couldn't fight off the strongest feeling of déjà vu she'd had in a long, long time. But alas, before she'd been able to say anything to her brother, he'd set his jaw and tensed his shoulders and gotten out of the car. And then the moment was gone. Not to say she didn't still feel uncomfortable, because she very much did, but the moment where she felt she could tell her brother without him looking at her like she'd grown a new head had vanished.<p>

Besides… he had enough on his plate. This house was harder for him to be around than it was for her. She didn't need to stress him out. And anyway, who's to say that she wasn't only uncomfortable because they were back at their old house, same as her brother?

Sam's thoughts grumbled to her as she trudged up the stairs, and she frowned, listening to her brother move around in the kitchen below her. She rolled her shoulders when she reached the top and shook her head, dispelling such distractions away. She needed to focus, and get this done lickety-split. Missouri said fast, right?

Sam walked through the door to the right of the staircase and walked into some kind of study. West. Easy enough. Without hesitation, Sam walked over to a wall and went through the process of finding the studs behind the drywall and zoning in on an acceptable spot for a small hole. She took her hammer, swung, and promptly shoved one of her three bags through the hole. Something kind of… _slithered_ on the back of her neck when she finished, but she ignored it and moved over to the wall perpendicular to the left of the one she'd just bashed in. Southern wall. She repeated the same process to shove one of the cleansing bags into the hole, and again ignored the sickening pull in her gut before moving on. Next was Sari's room. The wall with her small, white desk was the eastern wall, and Sam's next destination. This time, when she finished, something pulled sharply on Sam's ponytail. She whipped around, eyes roving over the empty room, but saw nothing. Sam bit her lip nervously and quickly exited Sari's room (she doesn't care what anyone else says, she didn't look at the ceiling).

Okay… so, north was… Sam looked around, getting her bearings. Jenny's room. Kay. Gotcha.

Sam walked down the hallway from the hallway as she had earlier that day, passing Sari's bedroom instead. The fam-damily was out for the next couple hours, thank you, Missouri. Sam didn't know what the psychic woman had told her exactly, but Jenny had grabbed her kids, packed a diaper bag for Ritchie, and they'd driven away in their cute, little minivan. Like a real family (those still existed these days?).

Sam gently shoved open the door, taking quick stock of the room. Flowery wallpaper, queen-sized bed, there were the windows that Sam had seen in her visions (she recognized the way the tops were rounded) on the wall opposite the bed, a couple of nightstands, lamps, and a worn book on top of the dresser. And lots of boxes yet to be unpacked. For the most part, simple. Clean. Sam could respect that. She liked things to be simple, too. It was easier to keep everything organized that way.

Walking over to the wall with the windows, she knelt down and set down her last bag. She heard some kind of noise that she couldn't place coming from downstairs, but her brother hadn't yelled for her help, so she figured that whatever it was, he was handling it. Sam tapped the hammer lightly on the walls, listening to the sounds and the change in pitch that would indicate she'd found a stud. It was really hard for her to focus this time, though.

The hairs on the back of her neck were raising slowly, making her skin prickly and itch like _whoa_, and she couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching her, definitely a some_thing_. This feeling of being cornered prey just waiting for her throat to be ripped out was most definitely not indicative of a human watching her. This is always how she felt on a Hunt when she was about to get the jump on something. She frowned.

"I know you're there, buster," she muttered. She jumped when she heard hissing off to her right. She huffed at herself and her jumpiness and renewed her interest in the walls. She'd just made the beginnings of her hole when she heard something crash behind her. She gasped and whipped her head around to glare at whatever had frightened her, but Sam never got the chance because at that moment a wire wrapped around her neck twice and pulled her on to the floor.

Sam dropped the hammer, her hands flying up to the chord cutting off her airflow. She tried (unsuccessfully) to get a little air, but there was no give. She tilted her head certain way, tried clawing at the chord, taking shallow breaths, but nothing. This poltergeist had her completely cut off from all oxygen. Which left her just a couple minutes to grab the bag and toss it in the hole and finish the purification process before she passed out, and another two before she died.

Fucking peachy.

Sam could feel her cheeks getting hot with the blood that couldn't travel through her arteries, and her eyes felt like they were starting to swell out of their sockets, and she reached blindly down with her right hand by her knee where she thought the bag should be. But no matter where her hand landed, all she got was hard wood. After a few failed tries, Sam's self-preservation won out of her determination to finish the job, and her hand flew up to the chord. Her brain felt a little fuzzy, and things in her vision were swimming around black dots. Her eyelids felt heavy, and the muscles in her arms were twitching every now and then. Her fingers were trembling and starting to lose their grip on the chord around her neck. Her gasps were shorter and less desperate as she started to float off towards something deep, and black, and terrifying. There were whispers calling out her name, and a voice that was trying to tell her something, but it was too much like ice, and she couldn't figure out the language, and why were couldn't she feel her feet? Was that gun oil she smelled?

Some loud sort of banging dimly registered from that place with all the color and Sam was just about to fall over into that darkness and sleep (_finally_ sleep), when the pressure around her neck vanished. She took great gulping gasps of air, trying to suck the world down her throat, and something warm wrapped around her shoulders. She smelled leather, gun oil, Old Spice and something that reminded her very much of home. Home? What home? She didn't have a home.

Sam's breathing slowed and she struggled to open her eyes, which were still kind of heavy. From the slits she was able to manage, though, she saw green. Lots and lots of green. An olive green, and little hairs of fabric that were frayed in several spots.

She blinked once, twice, three times. Oh hey, she knew that color green. That was the color of one of Dean's jackets…

Oh. _Oh_.

"Dean?" she rasped. She felt the warmth tighten around her shoulder and realized with some sluggish happiness that he was hugging her. She took a deep breath in. Leather, Old Spice, gun oil and something _other_. Yeah, that was definitely Dean. All of the most important things in his life that he never could was away, no matter how many times he took a shower. There was many a night where Sam had fallen asleep to this smell in the back of the Impala with her head in Dean's lap, her dad's (now her brother's) leather jacket spread over her like a blanket. If she was being completely honest, Sam secretly loved it. The combination of different scents mixing with the natural chemistry of her brother's body so that it all meshed together into one unique scent with different layers had comforted her like nothing else as a child. When Dean had finally started going off with their dad on Hunts and left Sam behind in the motel room (or the Impala on the odd job that Sam couldn't stay on her own for a couple hours), he'd made sure to leave her with his jacket for reassurance, and even then he'd smelled like this. The crisp pine of the Burke's oil, the musky texture of their dad's deodorant that Dean would steal so that he smelled like a grown up (boys were so silly), the richness from the leather in the Impala… every time it had washed over baby Sammy, she'd known her brother was close by, and it had been rule number one for her as a little girl that if Dean was around, she was safe. Over a decade later, she felt no different.

As subtly as she could, Sam turned her head into her brother's jacket and took a deep breath. She smiled lazily and allowed herself one small moment where she felt five again, and was sneaking into her brother's bed because hers was too big for her to fall asleep in and cuddling up against his back and her favorite stuffed panda, Orion.

"You okay, Sammy?" Sam opted to nod against his shoulder instead of speaking. Her throat felt raw and sore whenever she swallowed, and she wasn't entirely sure she could speak just yet. "Jesus, you scared the shit out of me."

If she was sitting up on her own, and not leaning against Dean while he hugged her (did he realize that he still had her wrapped in his arms?), she'd duck her head. Yeah, it was her fault this time. She shouldn't have picked a spot where her back was to the rest of the room. She should have been faster about taking care of the last bag. She should have noticed the chord sneaking up, she should have paid attention to that feeling she'd had ever since they'd pulled up in front of their… in front of Jenny's house. She sighed and took one last calming breath before steadying herself with her hands on the floor and drawing away from her brother.

She smiled sheepishly and shrugged her shoulders when she was sitting up. Dean still had his hands on her shoulders. He had that look on his face that told her he would be angry later when he'd calmed down, but he'd come too close to losing her for him to be upset just yet. He had that wild 'I-almost-lost-Sammy' look, that 'I-should-have-been-looking-out-for-you-better' look, and _that_… well, that hurt more than anything he could have said.

Sam hated how quick her brother was to blame himself for everything. If something happened to her, or something went wrong on a Hunt, or some other stupid shit that Sam had messed up _just as easily_, it was all his fault. It all came back to John-fucking-Winchester, she had no doubt about that. All of his demands and unrealistic expectations made her brother constantly feel like a failure unless he was better than perfect, and he shouldered all the blame, even when nothing was his fault. Dean lived with an overly-healthy dose of self-loathing and under all that bullshit ego and arrogance, Sam suspected that he really didn't actually like himself very much.

They were both so fucked up.

"Can you stand up?" Dean asked her tentatively. Sam rolled her eyes good-naturedly and shoved herself to her feet. Her brother watched her nervously, waiting to see if she'd lose her balance because she wasn't ready to be on her feet just yet. He still had a hand on her shoulder. She understood that. Sometimes the only thing that had been able to convince her that Dean hadn't died on a Hunt was by physically touching him and feeling the warmth seep from his body into hers. She decided not to call her brother out on it.

Fortunately, her legs didn't shake, and her brother treating her like some fragile doll about to break was completely pointless. _Un_fortunately, she stood up too fast and the blood rushed away from her head and left her dizzy, make her brother fret for a few moments like she was a fragile doll about to break.

Really, he was worse than a mother hen.

"Did you…" Sam cleared her throat and swallowed to try and erase the gravely tone in her voice, "did you finish?" He nodded.

"Yeah, but the kitchen's a fucking disaster."

"Missouri?"

"Dunno. She didn't come up. I just finished with mine, nearly got shanked in the process, and then ran up here to make sure you got done okay." Sam nodded and looked over at the hole in the wall. It was considerably bigger than what she'd made with her hammer, and there were a couple cracks around the opening in the wallpaper and drywall, though the hammer was exactly where she'd dropped it. Had Dean kicked it in?

"Well… let's go find Missouri." Dean nodded and followed Sam out of Jenny's room.

Something tickled at the back of her neck. Some voice whispered when she walked by Sari's bedroom. Her arms got goosebumps. Something pulled in her gut. Sam froze and Dean ran in to her back.

"Sam? What? What's wrong?" Dean instantly went into 'Sammy protection' mode, grabbing her arm and turning her around to face him. She stared into Sari's bedroom, her eyes focusing on the closet. She shook her head and bit her lip.

"No, it's nothing…" Dean looked like he wanted to say more, but Sam pulled away from his hands and rushed off towards the stairs. Revenge or no revenge, she would be all too fucking happy to put Lawrence in their rearview mirror.

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><p><strong>So! Next chapter we have a special guest star! Still outta internet, but leaving me reviews to see when I mooch of my neighbor will make me uber happy!<strong>

**So you should do it.**

**G'head. The button is right down there. It's so pretty and blue. Just press it, make my day!**

**Peace.**


	10. There is No Gift Without a Price

**OH-EM-GEE, DOUBLE POSTING, WUT?**

**Yeah, that's right. I'm so badass that I have TWO chapters for you today, my chickadees! Whose your favorite author? Oh, what? MoonDrop is? Awwww yeeeeeah. **

**Ha ha. All joking aside, I really really like how this chapter turned out. I winged it with the fight scene because in the show it kept cutting away to show Dean chopping away at the front door with an axe, and really, I'm all for caring!Dean, but it made my job a little harder. Also, I made Sam's injuries in this poltergeist showdown a little worse than what Sam actually gets in the show. Which is to say, he gets pretty much nothing in the show. **

**Where's the gore, man? Where's the pain? WHERE'S THE HUMANITY?**

**...I'm a little sleep-deprived today. Grand total of three hours total, and these two chapter pooped out of my brain at like, six in the morning. So please 'scuse my rambling and incoherence, I'm just kind of crashing.**

**ANYHOO, I'll stop this useless drivel and let y'all get to reading! **

**Please tell me what you think! Review, review, review!**

**Kisses,**

**MD**

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!**_

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><p>In case you had any doubts, no, Dean wasn't kidding when he'd said the kitchen was a fucking disaster, he was just understating the situation. It wasn't simply a fucking disaster, it was a god damn <em>catastrophe<em>. The fridge had been completely gutted, and food and condiments covered the cabinets and counters surrounding it. The dining table had been turned on its side and used as a shield, with knives cutting clean through the wood right to the hilt. Drawers were ripped open and their contents strewn all over to the floor. It was nearly impossible to take a step without stepping in some pile of food or puddle of something or tripping over a broken utensil. Sam was actually kind of impressed when she looked up and saw some frozen hamburger stuck on the ceiling.

The siblings had ignored the kitchen at first, though, and ran down the stairs to the basement to check on Missouri. They found her pinned against a wall with an old, heavy desk of some kind pressing her into the concrete foundations. It had taken all three of them to shove it out of the way. The older woman said she was fine, just a little sore. Nothing that wouldn't go away in a few days, and was _Sam_ okay because it looked like her neck was starting to bruise. Dean helped Missouri upstairs, and then Sam got them all a glass of water. She figured since the kitchen was already gone to shit, what were three more glasses?

Ignoring the problem didn't make it go away, however, and when all three of them walked back in to the ravished kitchen, it looked exactly the same. Dean walked over to some drawers close to where Ritchie's play pen _used_ to be to fiddle with some silverware while Missouri leaned with her elbow against one of the legs of the table. Sam was just taking stock of the floors when she felt something cold almost brush hair away from her face. She jumped and turned around, but there wasn't anything her hair could have caught on, and Missouri wasn't even facing her. Sam chewed on her lip.

"You _sure_ this is over?" she asked nervously. Dean looked over at her, watching her face for any cause for alarm. Sam watched the back of Missouri's head as the woman inspected the damage in front of them.

"I'm sure. Why?" She turned around and faced Sam with a quizzical expression on her face. "Why do you ask?"

Sam looked from Missouri to her brother and back again before releasing her lip and shaking her head. She tucked that stray piece of hair behind her ear and looked out the window over the sink. She could make out the neighbor's pale gray house in the clear light of the half-moon.

"Oh, never mind," she sighed. "It's nothing, I guess." Missouri narrowed her eyes at Sam, and she had the distinct (uncomfortable) feeling that the woman was trying to find answers out of Sam's head. She really wished Missouri would quit it, it was unsettling to not have thoughts to herself.

Thankfully, attention was drawn off of Sam by the lock on the front door clicking and the door swinging open. All three of them tensed as they heard Jenny usher her kids back into the house. Guess she hadn't been comfortable enough to leave them alone for more than half an hour, which was fine considering how quickly they'd wrapped up this whole thing, but seriously, if they'd still been in the middle of cleansing the house and Jenny just waltzed through the front door?

Oi vey… civilians.

"Hello?" Jenny called. "We're home!" Sam grimaced in preparation for the blonde mother witnessing the mess they hadn't had a chance to clean up yet. And, as if right on cue, she appeared in the entryway. It was almost comical the way Jenny's jaw dropped and the size that her eyes widened to. Sam glanced around the kitchen and winced guilty. No, they hadn't really caused this mess, but they _were_ the ones to blame. "What happened?"

"Hi. Sorry. Um," Sam said with a half-smile, "we'll – we'll pay for all of this." Sam swept her arm around the room, ignoring the look on her brother's face that spoke all too well about what he thought of _that _idea. Well… looked like a good chunk of the cash Sam had was gone now. No food for her the next few times they stopped somewhere to eat. Ugh, she could already hear her stomach growling in protest.

"Don't worry," Missouri cooed, "_Dean's_ gonna clean up this mess." Sam quirked an eyebrow at the psychic and flicked her eyes over to her brother. His face was saying just how much he was _not_ going to clean up this mess, and had she really been talking about him? Missouri looked at him over her shoulder. "Well, what are you waitin' for, boy? Get the mop." Dean raised his eyebrows at the older woman, and Sam could tell by the dark glint in his eyes all the colorful expressions he was grumbling in his head. He rolled his eyes and turned to do as instructed but then stopped when Missouri snapped, "And don't cuss at me!"

Dean stared at her for a long moment, his eyes wide with surprise before he scowled and started muttering under his breath. He stomped off(presumably to go look for a mop), and Sam snickered. It may have been throwing Sam off to have this strange woman so in tune with her emotions (Dean was usually the only one that knew what she was feeling at any given time, for obvious reasons), but it was fucking hilarious to see that turned on her brother. Call it sibling rivalry or whatever, but it made her laugh. It was nice to find things that could still make her laugh… especially at her brother's expense.

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><p>It had taken Dean a good chunk of time to get the kitchen set to rights again. Long enough for Jenny to put both of her kids down to sleep for the night, and long enough that Sam was starting to feel her eyelids droop. She'd helped him out, eventually, if only to speed up the process and get herself to a bed sooner than later. It wasn't a late night for Sam, her watch told her it was only a quarter until one in the morning, but she'd almost been choked to death, so excuse her if she felt a little wiped.<p>

Jenny stayed up with them, trying to find out what they'd done to make everything stop, but Sam and Dean (masters of deflection and evasion that they were) kept her going in circles without getting any real answers. It was done, they said, and that was all she really needed to worry about. Well… actually, Dean said. Sam still had that slithering feeling over her neck every now and then and wasn't entirely sold on the idea just yet. Still, Missouri seemed convinced, and if the poltergeist was still around, wouldn't it have taken care of them by now? Unless, of course, it recognized them as bigger threats and was just biding time until they left so it could continue terrorizing Jenny and her family.

Well…

Shit.

They left just a little after one, with Dean helping Missouri down the stairs on account of her legs still being a might sore. The three of them paused on their way to the Impala to give Jenny one last look. She smiled happily, if a little tiredly, and thanked them before retreating back in to her house and shutting the door.

They made a stop at Missouri's house with a promise to stop by before they left town in the morning to say goodbye and then drove over to their motel room. Sam had this feeling in her gut, this sinking feeling. She really wanted to go make sure Jenny was okay. Like, she really, _really_ wanted to go make sure, because she had the worst feeling that Jenny _wasn't_ okay, and it was freaking her the fuck out. Dean didn't seem to notice on their trip back to their room, though. He looked too buried in his own thoughts. Sam wondered for a moment if he felt a sense of closure after dealing with those spirits and saving that family.

She doubted it.

When they pulled in front of the room, Dean whipped out the room key and slipped through the door, but Sam was a little hesitant. She frowned and bit her lip, rubbing distractedly at her stomach where the dread was turning to an almost physical ache. She stared at the ground as she stepped over the threshold and shut the door. Maybe she could slip away when Dean went to sleep… just to make sure. She just… she just needed to see with her own eyes that Jenny was okay, and that she wouldn't appear in front of her window, crying and screaming for help like the blonde woman had in Sam's vision. She sighed. Please, oh please let Dean fall asleep soon.

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><p>It was too quiet for Sam's liking. It was the kind of silence that muted all sounds, made everything seem hushed and far away. There wasn't a single light on in any of the houses on the whole block, but it was closing in on three in the morning, so Sam wasn't surprised. Still, this silence was making her skin crawl. Like the quiet before a storm.<p>

Sam prayed silently in her head that Jenny and her family would be protected while she leaned over to look through her brother's open window and up at Jenny's house. The windows on the second floor where the mother's room was were completely dark. Not a sign of life. Sam tensed and waited. She didn't know what she was waiting for, but she knew that she just had to wait. The uncomfortable pull in her gut had lessened once they'd started out towards Jenny's house, but it hadn't completely gone away yet.

"All right," Dean grumbled, "so, tell me again, _what_ are we still doin' here?" Sam shifted in her seat to a more comfortable position that didn't strain her neck in such a way before answering. It had taken some serious convincing for him to join her, especially after he'd taken a sip of his whiskey (priceless, by the way), and it had come down to her telling him she was going with or without him, and if he wanted to make sure nothing happened, he better drag his ass along with. He hadn't been real happy with her tonight. She had the bruises to prove it.

"I don't know. I just… I still have a bad feeling." Dean looked away from the quiet house and turned his attention to his sister.

"Why? Missouri did her whole Zelda Rubenstein thing, the house should be clean, this should be over." Sam shrugged, keeping her eyes trained on the second story.

"Yeah, well, probably. But I just wanna make sure, that's all." Dean stared at her a moment longer before exhaling and reclining back as much as he could in the cramped space of the Impala.

"Yeah, well, problem is, I could be sleeping in a _bed_ right now," he grumbled. Sam looked away from the house for a moment to stare at her brother. She silently smiled as she recalled his expression when he'd spit out her repulsive mixture. Boy, was he going to make his retaliation nasty (hopefully less nasty with the peace-offering of an Ozzy concert. She hadn't told him about it just yet.), but, oh, to see his face. Ah, if she'd only had a camera.

She wiped the smile away and returned to her task of looking up at where Jenny's room should be, and hello, the blonde woman was standing in front the glass, pounding her fists on it and screaming. She whipped her head around, much as she had in Sam's vision, staring back into her room before looking out towards the car again and soundlessly screaming for help.

Well…

Shit.

Again.

"Dean!" Sam wacked her brother's arm for his attention. He opened his eyes to glare balefully at his sister. She threw open her door without looking for the handle with one hand and jabbed up at the house with another. "_Dean!_" He finally caught on and curse when he caught sight of Jenny's terrified expression. Just as Sam was slipping out of the car, Dean threw open his own door and followed suit.

"You grab the kids," he said as Sam ran around the front of the Impala, "I'll get Jenny!" Sam didn't even nod, just flew over to the front door and wrenched it open. Dean immediately took off for the stairs as he headed for Jenny, and Sam followed him up as she headed for Ritchie's room. She had to slip down a second hallway, and it took her two tries to get it right, but when she found the little boy's bedroom, she didn't hesitate to rush in and yank him out of his bed. He was still asleep, so Ritchie didn't do more than wrap his arms around her shoulders and snuffle into her neck sleepily. Sam wasted no time running back down the hall and bursting in to Sari's room.

The small girl was wide awake, sitting up in bed and shaking in fear, and rightfully so. There was a figure in the vague outline of a human, on fire, and walking towards her bed. Sam gasped as the heat rolled over her like a wave when she opened Sari's door. The fire crackled and snapped, and for a moment, Sam completely froze. The soft glow from the orange flames sparked memories that flashed in front of her eyes and the wave of pain she'd first felt in Palo Alto reared its head again. She blinked, however, and shoved all that away, dashing inside and reaching for the little girl. Sari was small for her age, and didn't weigh too much more than her brother, so Sam could manage to carry them to the front door before her arms started burning too bad.

"Don't look, Sari!" Sam called as she scooped the sobbing girl in to her arms. "Don't look!"

Sam made it to the bottom of the stairs just fine before something… happened. The back of her neck felt like it was pressed against ice, and she felt more than heard something growl next to her ear. The vibration rolled through her whole skull and rattled her brain, and the pulling feeling in her gut wrenched painfully. Sam stopped running, filling with dread, and set the two children gently down on the ground. She knelt in front of Sari as Ritchie rubbed sleep out of his eyes.

"All right, Sari," Sam panted, "take your brother outside as fast as you can, and _don't look back!_" Sari nodded, gripping her little brother's hand. Sam felt something clench painfully around her ankle, and with a sharp yank, she was being dragged back through the house, away from Sari's screams, and towards the kitchen. Sam tried desperately to grab on to something to stop herself, but she was going too fast and anything she could have used just slipped out of her fingers. She slid along the floor until the poltergeist pulled her under the table, knocking over the chairs and the table, and shoving her into the cupboard under the sink. Sam instinctively covered her head as the hard wood from a chair fell towards her face.

Huffing in annoyance, Sam shoved the chairs out of the way and crawled away, heading for the door, but a supernatural force picked her up and threw her towards the doorway, smashing her into the wall instead. She was able to twist her body so that she landed more on her left shoulder more than her head, and with a sickening pop and a white-hot stab of pain, her shoulder dislocated. Better than breaking her neck anyway. Sam fell to the floor, landing awkwardly (and painfully) on her injured arm, and yelped in pain. She took a gasp of breath before using her good arm to work her way to her feet. In hindsight, that was probably a bad idea because it pinned her to the wall as soon as she was standing straight. Sam hoped that was the end of it, but she knew that it was futile. She was a Winchester. Nothing ever went the way she wanted. As if to prove her point, the poltergeist(geists?) picked her up effortlessly and tossed her across the room and straight into the cabinets housing Jenny's plates and bowls. Sam barely had enough time to get her right hand in front of her face before her body was smashing through the glass panels. She fell out of the air, hitting the granite counter tops on her way down, and landing right on her left elbow.

"_Fuck_!" she yelled, as her dislocated arm jarred and the pain redoubled. She let her head fall back to the floor with a pained groan. She felt something cold touch her face, and flinched. The coolness slid over her cheeks and down to her neck where it wrapped around the bruises she had from the chord and yanked her up to her feet. Sam gasped, just barely getting enough air, as the spirit shoved her across the room and against Jenny's largest cupboards, holding her off her feet. Sam had tucked her injured arm in to her jacket as soon as she'd started standing, so it was pressed hard against her body, but the rest of her was restrained against the wood. The ice released her neck, and Sam took gasping breaths, her head dizzy and spinning. She struggled against the unnatural force keeping her arms and legs down, but she was only able to manage to wrench her good hand away from the wood by a couple inches before the force doubled in strength and her had slapped back into place.

Sam panted, sore all over, and her shoulder throbbed painfully. She heard some banging from the front door that she hoped was her brother, and was about to call out and see but something stopped her. The figure on fire from Sari's room walked slowly into the kitchen, from the other side of the room. There were the flames reaching up towards the ceiling and the empty space around, and then inside the fire itself, there was this… _almost_ empty space where the fire didn't dance like normal so much as it did coil around the spirit's shape. The form flickered and contorted with the shape of the flames on the outside, but if Sam squinted hard enough, she could look past the orange and peer at the _almost_ emptiness and see… curves? Wai - wha? What the hell? No, really, this spirit had curves like, like… womanly curves. A full-on hourglass figure and everything. It was hard to know for sure, her brain was kind of frazzled and the spirit was on the other side of the room, but Sam guessed it was about as tall as she was, maybe an inch or two taller.

Sam dimly heard someone call her name and recognized it as her brother, but she was so busy focusing on the fire figure that she didn't notice until later. She squinted as the spirit took a couple small steps towards her, and now that it was closer, she could see the fire wrapping around actual facial features. Straight nose, lips, round face and curves. Sam's eyes widened. A female spirit. Fire. In _this_ house?

No.

Fucking.

Way.

"Sam? Sam!" She tore her eyes away from the figure for a moment to watch her brother storm into the kitchen, an axe in one hand and his favorite sawed-off in another. He was staring at Sam, eyes dark with concern, but as soon as he walked in as saw the figure, he paused and then stood protectively in front of his sister and raised his gun. Sam panicked.

"No!" she yelled, startling her brother though his aim never wavered. "No! Don't! Don't shoot!"

"What? Why not?" he demanded. Sam lowered her voice until it was just barely louder than the crackling of the fire in front of them.

"Because I know who it is… I can see her now." As if those words were magic, the fire cooled from the feet slowly up her legs until it reached the hem of a white nightgown. The siblings watched, entranced, as more and more of a definite female person was revealed, and Sam couldn't help the tears she felt welling in her eyes even before it reached the face of their mother, Mary Winchester.

She was even more beautiful than Sam had seen in any pictures. She was slender, pale, and tall for a woman. Her light blonde hair fell in soft curls past her shoulders, framing her thin face. She had high cheek bones, a small mouth, straight nose (Dean's nose, now that she noticed, though his had a bump from past injuries), slender, arching eyebrows, and her face was not yet wrinkled with age. When she opened her eyes, Sam almost gasped. Her eyes were the same hazel blue that Sam saw every day in the mirror, but in the low light of the dark kitchen, they glowed with an icy cool, blue fire. She knew that she'd gotten her mother's eye color from photos she'd seen in the past, but she had no idea that her mom's eyes could be so… intense and captivating. If Sam wasn't restrained against the cupboard, she'd probably try and hug the woman, ghost or no ghost.

"Mom?" Dean croaked weakly, his gun lowering in shaking hands. Mary took three steps until she was standing in front of her son and looked up into his eye for a few seconds, her face neutral and calm. But then her lips twitched and she broke out into a soft smile. It was a beautiful smile. Full of warmth and love and everything that Sam had never had in her life growing up, and this spot inside her soul she hadn't known was empty cried out in pain.

"Dean," she sighed, like she'd been waiting all this time just to say his name. His breath hitched and Mary's smile widened before she tucked it away and turned to Sam. Sam felt a tear spill over onto her cheeks as Mary walked past her son to stand in front of Sam. Dean didn't even blink, his eyes following their mother and staring at her like he'd never see her again.

Oh wait…

"Sam," she said in that same sighing voice, like her name had been the only word she'd been waiting to say. Now that their mom was so close, Sam could see just how long and dark her eyelashes were. She smiled weakly down at her mother from where the poltergeist kept her pressed against the wall. Mary smiled up at her daughter much like she had at Dean, and she felt the full impact of the warmth and love their mom put behind her smile. It washed over Sam like a balm, sealing up all her wounds and wrapping her in happiness and peace. She couldn't help the way her breath sounded broken and watery and didn't even bother trying to stop her tears. If there was only one time where Sam felt she deserved to cry in her life, this was it.

Mary's smile slowly died and her mouth set in a grim line. Her slender eyebrows pulled towards each other and something flashed deep in her blue-gold eyes. Was it guilt? Regret? Sorrow? Anger? A mixture of those? Sam couldn't tell.

"I'm sorry." Sam tried to shake her head in confusion, but she couldn't budge. She blinked a tear out of her eyes and felt the warm trail it made down her cheeks. She frowned down at her mom, thoroughly puzzled. What the hell did her mom have to apologize for? It's not like it was her _fault_ she died, how the hell was she supposed to have known there was something waiting in her nursery all those years ago?

"F-For what?" Excuse the stutter, Sam's kind of talking with the undead spirit of her brutally murdered mother. She deserves a little weakness right now.

Mary didn't answer, however. She just gave Sam one last grave look before turning around and walking away. Her movement were too jerky sometimes, like those Sam had only ever seen from ghosts. Like a part of her body was moving before she meant it to and the rest of her involuntarily twitched as it tried to catch up. Sam grimaced whenever that happened. It was extremely disturbing to see a movement she'd associated with the paranormal coming from her mother. Well, her mother's _ghost_, but you get the idea.

"_You_ get out of my house," Mary growled, looking up at the ceiling. "And let go of my daughter." The fire erupted out from the soles of her feet, traveling up her body much faster than it had dissipated. It was even brighter than before, and Dean had trouble looking at it for more than a few seconds before he glanced down for a break and looked back over at the flaming spirit of their mother. It was hard for Sam to look for very long, too, but she dealt with it, determined not to miss a moment. She'd heard her mother's voice. Heard the inflections and lilting notes that were specific to her mother. She'd never dreamed she'd have a chance to her the way her name sounded when it was said by her mother, and one of her most secret prayers to God had just been answered. She didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

When Mary was entirely engulfed, the flames reached up to the ceiling and left the floor, spreading out over the white paint before disappearing. Not a single scorch mark marred the perfect paint job. As soon as the flames flickered out, the pressure against Sam's body vanished, and she dropped quite suddenly the few inches to the ground. Her brother must have still been dazed because he didn't reach out to catch her, and Sam's legs crumpled under her sudden weight. She fell forward, and thrust her right hand out to break her fall, but the weight distribution was weird because she was only using _one_ hand and she wobbled before she fell on her bad shoulder.

"Ow! _Son of a bitch_!" The curse made her brother jump and snap back to himself because soon he was reaching down and gingerly helping Sam to her feet. She swayed for a second, her muscles in her arms sore and abused, and her shoulder throbbing dangerously, but she hardly noticed. She just stared at the spot on the ceiling where her mother had evaporated, willing the blonde woman to return. What had she been sorry for? Sorry she'd died? Sorry that her death had driven her life to end up like this? But if that was the case, why hadn't she apologize to Dean too? Was she sorry Sam never got a chance to know her? Sam shook her head, finally noticing for the first time that the hairs on the back of her neck weren't on end, she had no goosebumps, and the pulling in her stomach had stopped.

Sam looked up at her brother with sad eyes. He was blinking away (not) tears, his face still a little unfocused and stunned. She sighed, the balm she'd felt earlier dissolving faster than she would have liked.

"_Now_ it's over," Sam whispered. She pushed away from her brother and trudged towards the front door, refusing to look back in towards the kitchen. It was a few seconds before she heard her brother follow.

Sam wasn't one of drinking her problems away after an especially taxing case, but man... she really wished she hadn't gotten rid of her brother's whiskey right about now.

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><p><strong>Please please pleeeeeeeease review!<strong>

**Seriously!**

**Please?**

**I gave y'all a double posting! Return the favor with some loooooooove.**

**Peace.**


	11. The Morning Comes With Pain Relief

**Hey, lovies!**

**So, after some much-needed sleep and a healthy does of tea, I am no longer quite so slaphappy. Whipped this out the day I posted chapters nine and ten, but my neighbor turned off their wifi so I couldn't post. Eh, whatevs. **

**Such is the end of Sam and Dean's current journey! I'm thinking of doing the episode 'Hell House' next, but dunno what that will be started. Also, be on the lookout for more original fanfics, as I have a few ideas swirling around in my head.**

**I hope you like this ending, I had a lot of fun with the 'episode' and enjoyed all of y'alls loverly comments!**

**Please leave me some love! Reviews are love!**

**XOXOXO,**

**MD**

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!**_

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><p>Sam watched her brother's face as he rifled through the wooden box of their family pictures Jenny had handed over. The morning sun was hidden behind dirty gray clouds and the air had a smell about it that made Sam think it was going to rain soon, but it was nice. All things considered. At least her shoulder felt a might better. Boy had <em>that<em> been fun.

At first, Sam had thought her brother had shoved her shoulder back into place harder than necessary because the explosion of pain when her joint aligned correctly had felt worse than usual, but then she'd reminded herself that Dean would never hurt her in a million years, so she was being paranoid. It probably hurt more because she'd gone so long with it injured and hadn't iced it first so her shoulder had been swollen when he'd fixed it back at their hotel room. Still, her brother had been _pissed_ beyond all reason when he'd taken a sip of the (not) whiskey last night, and she hadn't entirely ruled it out as a possibility.

After some much-delayed-and-much-needed ice and the couple hours of sleep she'd grabbed last night, however, Sam felt much better. Couldn't speak for her brother, though. Since he hadn't had any alcohol handy, he'd left Sam to her own devices right after he's helped her with her injury, and then left to go drown himself in booze at some bar. Honestly, she hadn't even expected him to come back last night, but he'd stumbled through the door sometime around four in the morning when Sam was on her laptop again, and promptly passed out on his bed. Well, actually, her bed, but after the way he'd drooled all over the pillows and saturated the sheets until they smelled like cheap beer and cigarette smoke, Sam had had no problems giving him the lumpy mattress.

They hadn't said anything once they'd woken up. Just packed up their stuff, wiped away their prints, and went straight to Missouri's to tell her the news of what had happened last night. They hadn't even gone out to eat, which was just as well, because the psychic woman all but shoved breakfast down their throats. Dean hadn't wanted to tell Missouri the part about their mom, Sam had seen it on his face, but really, there wasn't any way they could keep it from her, she'd just see it in their minds anyway, so she'd volunteered herself for the roll of relaying that uncomfortable bit to the older woman, earning herself a dark scowl from her brother and a pitying pat from Missouri.

Life was just fucking awesome.

And all of that lead the three of them here, back to this house, for the fourth time in three days. Dean was talking to Jenny, rifling through old pictures with this sad, wistful expression buried deep in his eyes, and Missouri was walking through the house to see if it was really over and done with like Sam had declared last night. The blonde mother was all smiles this morning, saying they hadn't had any more problems since and no, don't even worry about the expenses for the damage done to the door and kitchen, they did enough already saving her family. Sam had stuck around just long enough to hear they were in the clear expense wise, and then wandered over to the house. She didn't wanna go back in, not really, but she felt antsy standing under Jenny's brown gaze, filled with such appreciation and gratitude.

Gratitude for what? They hadn't done anything. It was their mom that had saved them all. They should all be thanking Mary Winchester for their lives, not her children. Whatever she'd done, it had solved the poltergeist problem, and you can believe Sam when she says she is never underestimating those freaky things ever again. So here she was, sitting on the front steps outside of the house, watching her brother and trying to ignore the sad acceptance she saw in his face. Like he already knew there was never a chance for him to have a family like this ever again, and all those pictures of him smiling and laughing as a toddler would only serve to remind him of that fact. There were even a few of Sam in there, though considerably less considering how little time she'd spent here before… well, everything.

"Well, there are no spirits in _there_ anymore, that's for sure," Missouri's voice called behind Sam. She looked over her shoulder as the woman walked out and joined her on the steps. Sam leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands together.

"Not even my mother?" Her voice was soft, so soft, and so full of hope. Useless hope, but hope nonetheless. She'd been there last night, she'd seen… well, _something_ happen, but it was safe to assume that Mary Winchester truly was no more.

Missouri shook her head and looked over at Sam with a sad smile.

"No, not even your mother." Sam nodded, expecting that answer and telling herself that the bad taste in the back of her mouth wasn't disappointment. She scrubbed a hand over her face tiredly and took a deep breath.

"What happened?" Missouri pursed her lips for a moment, considering Sam before she answered. She probably looked like crap. She hadn't even brushed her hair or showered today. Hell, she hadn't even bothered to put it up in a ponytail, just tucked it behind her ears and called it good. She was too exhausted to even bother with something that simple. She just wanted to leave this horrible place and forget she'd ever had these visions; pretend like this never happened.

"Your mom's spirit and the poltergeist's energy, they cancelled each other out." Sam stared at Missouri, her sluggish brain slow to piece everything together. She blinked, waiting for more, because there _had_ to be more to this explanation. That just didn't make sense. Missouri pulled her brows together sympathetically and lowered her voice as she continued. "Your mom destroyed herself goin' after that thing."

Because _that_ just made Sam feel like a million fucking dollars.

"Why would she do something like that?" Sam asked, slightly horrified. Destroyed? What the fuck did Missouri mean _destroyed_? Surely not like, gone forever or, or… destroyed? What did that word even mean? Sam had never given much thought as to what happened to a spirit when they put it rest; had never considered if it moved on to another place where the tortured soul could finally find peace and healing for whatever reason had kept them here. Now, though, she found that the possibilities were kind of scaring her shitless.

"Well, to protect her children, of course." Sam knew Missouri probably meant for that to make her feel better, but honestly, that just made her feel worse. It wasn't enough that their mom had died in Sam's nursery, now she'd willingly snuffed out her own existence because of her. Again. She'd given this a lot of thought these past couple months, and it only stood to reason that Mary had first been killed because of some connection to Sam. Why else would Mary die in her nursery and then Roger be killed in the same fashion right as she was settling in to her new life? How many times would Sam's bad luck, her cursed life, cause those around her pain? Seriously, it wasn't fair how often people got hurt because of her.

Sam blinked fiercely, trying to hide the tears welling up in her eyes, and looked down at her hands. Her right had a few cuts from all the glass last night, and there were four bandages over the back and wrapped around her pinky. She sensed Missouri's hand kind of hovering over her right shoulder and tensed in preparation for the contact, but it didn't come. The older woman pulled her hand back and exhaled heavily.

"Sam, I'm sorry," she muttered. Sam discreetly wiped her hand over her eyes and glanced over at Missouri again.

"For what?"

"You sensed it was here, didn't you? Even when I couldn't." Ah. Right. Back to the part where Sam was so much of a freak that she knew when a poltergeist was around when a trained psychic didn't. She ducked her head, glaring at the ground beneath her. She felt… scared. Point blank. She was totally, and completely scared of what was happening to her because she didn't _know_ what was happening to her. She had no fucking idea. All her life Sam had been this semi-normal tomboy that had grown up as best she could in the life she was given, and now, out of nowhere, six-ish months ago, she starts having visions about people connected to her in some way that are going to die? If that wasn't a big, steaming pile of _whatthefuck_, she didn't know what was.

"What's happening to me, Missouri?" Sam looked up at the woman desperately. Any answer, even a bad one, would be better than this nothingness she was dealing with. Even if it was an answer she didn't like, at least she would know what to _do_ with all of this then. Couldn't Sam, just this once, get dealt an easy hand?

"I know I should have all the answers, but… I don't know…" Sam furrowed her brow for a moment as Missouri looked away. Correct her if she was wrong, but didn't people look down like that when they were lying? She wasn't just being paranoid or fabricating things, right? Missouri had looked almost… almost guilty.

Uhm… what?

Sam opened her mouth, frowning, to press the woman for more answers, but she never got the chance.

"Sam, you ready?" She turned away from the psychic next to her to look at her brother, leaning against the Impala, Jenny standing comfortably next to him. She nodded and snapped her mouth shut, giving Missouri one last searching gaze before getting to her feet and walking over to her brother. Dean walked around the car to the driver's side and Sam stood with her hands atop the roof, sharing a look with her brother. She tried to apologize in that look for all this mess, for being such a freak of nature, for putting him through seeing their dead mother's spirit literally burn herself to death – _again_ – to save their lives. She could never be sure because, following the Winchester code of conduct, they said nothing, but Sam thought by the way his face softened around the eyes just a little bit that he got the message.

"Don't you two be strangers, now!" Missouri called from behind Sam. Dean shifted his gaze to over his sister's shoulders and she turned around, nodding warily at the psychic woman. Sam wasn't sure what to make of her. On the one hand, she'd been hilarious and comforting and easy to be around, but on the other hand, she kept picking up on things Sam considered private and had possibly lied right to her face not five minutes ago.

"We won't," her brother assured. Sam turned back around and shared another look, this one, not so nice. They both knew they would never be back here, would probably never see these two women ever again. It was a rule that Hunters never visited a town twice, no matter if something came up again after they'd left. Things could get to twisted and covers could be blown, and people might start asking questions that shouldn't be asked. Of course, no one would do that in this town, because Sam and Dean had kept a pretty low profile this time, but that didn't stop them from wanting to be far away from a place that was so… personal. Sam didn't care if she had visions about this place again, she'd call up some other Hunter and get them to take care of it.

The two siblings got in to the Impala without a word and Sam buckled her seatbelt as her brother started the car.

"See you around," Missouri called, crossing her arms in front of her chest with a knowing glint in her eyes.

'_No you won't,'_ Sam thought, but said nothing. Just smiled politely as her brother gave one last wave to Jenny and the psychic before pulling away. Sam watched buildings and houses pass by her window curiously, trying to picture herself growing up here with summers spent getting sunburned out in the fields with her friends and winters wishing pointlessly for a couple flakes of snow, but it made her uneasy, so she stopped. She was being stupid, picturing a childhood she had never had and would never get the chance to have.

Sam shook her head. Dean coughed. She sighed.

She reached over and flicked on the radio, just in time to catch the tail end of 'Little Dreamer' by Van Halen blaring through the radio. Sam settled back in to her seat and closed her eyes. She wasn't expecting to fall asleep, not really; she never slept anymore. No, she was just sitting and waiting for the next Hunt to fall in to their laps in a town they had no relation to where no one knew them.

Sam decided, things were better that way.

END

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><p><strong>So, didn't have the time to read over this before I posted. Please excuse all mistakes... and stuff.<strong>

**But chyeah! Hope y'all liked it! I know I sure do!**

**Peace.**


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